


Je vois ma vie en rose

by lilacsigil



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Big Bang Challenge, F/F, Genderbending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-01
Updated: 2011-12-12
Packaged: 2017-10-27 06:00:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 10
Words: 79,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/292396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilacsigil/pseuds/lilacsigil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Je vois la vie en rose" is a full-cast gender change. Canon male characters become female, and canon female characters become male or genderqueer. The only exceptions are real people and background military/government characters.</p><p>The CIA's Marcus MacTaggert attempts to recruit Doctor Charlotte Xavier and her sibling Raven to assist in the capture of suspected Communist Sabrina Shaw and her unusual associates. Thrilled at the thought finding of more mutants, Charlotte and Raven agree, but are soon put off by the CIA's misogynist attitude and decide to track down these other mutants by themselves. They do find more mutants, but not the ones they were expecting.</p><p>Charlotte starts to build a community of mutants but Raven finds that many of them can't even accept themselves, let alone someone who doesn't belong within familiar definitions of gender. Erika's determination to kill Shaw, Shaw's quest to recruit more mutants, and world-threatening political brinkmanship collide with deadly consequences: Charlotte, Raven and Erika must decide what kind of world it is that they want to create.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The CIA

**Author's Note:**

> A massive thank you to st_aurafina for betaing this enormous fic.
> 
>  **Warnings:** Non-spoiler warnings: violence on a level with the movie; mentions of rape, sexual assault and torture; period misogyny, racism, homophobia and transphobia; eugenics; Holocaust imagery. Potentially spoilery warnings are listed in the endnotes: if you would like more details please feel free to contact me at lilacsigil@gmail.com

\---

*Raven, Raven, wait! I've got company!*

Raven paused on the stairs outside the door to the flat he shared with his big sister, waiting for Charlotte to give the all-clear. He shifted from a sleek-bobbed, panda-eyed Mod girl to his usual tall, blonde female self, making sure not to change the size of his feet or calves and damage yet another pair of boots. Not that he couldn't make boots himself, but his naked feet didn't always agree with the English weather.

*Okay! Come in!*

Raven opened the door to find a very rumpled Charlotte and an equally rumpled blonde woman in tweed sitting on the couch with their textbooks open. The other woman gave Raven a hard glare.

"You're tutoring!" Raven exclaimed. "How kind of you to keep helping other students when you've finished your defence!"

Charlotte smiled - she was always annoyingly smug when she was getting laid - and turned to the woman beside her. "That's my sister, Raven. She's off to bed now, aren't you, Raven?"

"Sure! I don't want to disrupt your studies." Raven stomped into their shared bedroom - which now smelled of sex and perfume, great - and got changed into his baggy nightshirt. He snibbed the door: it had a feeble lock and either of them could get it open with a pen, but it should be enough to keep Charlotte's Totty of the Week from seeing Raven sleeping. That could cause a lot of fuss. They were supposed to be two sisters, not a sister and her not-really-decided sibling. He stretched out and rippled into his natural shape - a young man with ridged blue skin and sleek red hair - and got into bed. Well, at least Charlotte had been considerate enough to make him a hot water bottle.

Some hours later, Raven woke to the sound of Charlotte trying to get undressed quietly. Her moderate drunkenness was making this task unnecessary complex.

"Sorry to wake you!" Charlotte felt Raven's mind the second she woke, of course. "I wouldn't have made you go to bed early except that Julianne was a big brave butch and wanted to protect me from my mean old sister. It worked brilliantly, so thank you."

"Her name's Julianne? Oh god, are you still trying to fuck your way through the Famous Five?"

Charlotte giggled. "Anne and George were easy. I only need Timmy and Dick now."

"Timmy's a dog and the dick's all mine," Raven grumped. "And if you were really sorry, you would have slept on the couch instead of coming in here and waking me up. You didn't even ask me how my evening was."

Charlotte plopped herself down on Raven's bed, half-undressed. Raven reached up and unhooked her bra for her. "Raven, my dear, how was your evening? Did you meet up with that groovy guy in the velvet jacket?"

"Yes! And he's a queer!" Raven couldn't help laughing and Charlotte joined in. "Okay, yeah, I'll go as a guy next time. I think he likes wispy little brunettes with tragic moustaches."

"You do a great tragic moustache. Comes from being around students for years." Charlotte managed to get her bra off and her flannel nightie on, then looked at her rumpled bed, befuddled. "Can I sleep in your bed? My bed is cold now."

"No, you'll get your boozy breath all over me." Raven moved over anyway - Charlotte was tiny, but the single bed was narrow and barely held both of them.

Charlotte dove in and put her cold nose right on Raven's arm. "I love you! You are the best sibling in the whole world."

Raven rolled his eyes. "Tell me about it."

\---

Charlotte was barely hung over the next morning, but at least that was a trait Raven shared. Today Charlotte was finally be awarded her doctorate, though she often proclaimed that she should be awarded two: one in her actual field of genetics, and one for fighting her way into the department in the first place.

Raven defied death to retrieve two pieces of toast from their dodgy toaster, and dropped them on a plate in front of his sister. "Don't start with the two doctorates again. I'll have to take one away for using telepathy on your committee."

"If they weren't such bloody idiots I wouldn't have had to fight hard enough to deserve two," Charlotte muttered, gouging at the cold block of butter on the table. "I mean, really, you'd think they'd never heard of Marie Curie, let alone Rosalind Franklin."

"Franklin was at Cambridge - they probably don't even acknowledge she existed." Raven retrieved his own toast and sat down. He was wearing his usual blonde female form today, back to being Charlotte's little sister for her ceremony.

"Point. I still haven't heard about the position I want, though."

Raven grimaced. "If they don't give it to you, they're idiots. On the other hand, we already know they're idiots, so…"

"We could go back to America, maybe?" Charlotte didn't look thrilled. "At least we wouldn't be tripping over each other in this tiny flat."

"No, we'd be rattling around in a giant house and we'd have to practically abduct our dates to get them all the way out there from New York."

Charlotte polished off her toast. "Still, we could get a place in the city. I bet there's lots of butches in New York."

Raven giggled. "Yeah, I bet they're all desperate for the love of Doctor Xavier. Maybe someone should give you a job teaching Interpersonal Relations."

"I need a job!" Charlotte yelled at the universe, via the ceiling. "I need adoring students to ravish!"

\---

When the rain came down late that afternoon, Raven was glad he'd chosen to wear actual clothes today. His trusty black knee-high boots were perfect for this kind of weather. The ridged soles of his feet could deal with any surface from tarmac to pebbles, but he really didn't like the way mud solidified around his toenails. How this happened when he wasn't even showing any toes he wasn't sure, but it must be due to the inherent evil of English mud. He missed New York, sometimes: not the city, but their home, where the grass was plush and springy and you had to go all the way down to the lake to find mud or slush. Of course, they'd had a team of groundskeepers working to keep it that way, but the memory of that soft grass moving under his feet made him wistful.

"Homesick?" Charlotte was right there, wrestling with her umbrella and trying not to poke Raven in the eye with it.

"Sorry to project all over you. Just…it's rained for months, here, and everything is grey."

Charlotte grinned the manic grin of a woman who'd already had two glasses of champagne on an empty stomach and was looking forward to more booze the second she made it to the pub. While she rarely got blind drunk, Charlotte did tend to use drink to help her deal with the close quarters and busy minds of Oxford. Alcohol didn't help her filter thoughts, she said, but it helped her not care about the contents of those thoughts. The rain made Raven feel like they were in a private world under their flapping umbrellas, but she knew it wasn't the same for Charlotte.

Charlotte finally got her umbrella under control, and wiped rain off her face, smearing her mascara. "There's a teaching post at the new university in Nairobi! Maybe we should go there?"

"Aren't they still having a rebellion over there?"

"Maybe? But it would be sunny!" They ducked into the pub with relief, to join the cheering throngs of new graduates who were already most of the way to pissed. Someone reached around to grab Raven's boob and he elbowed him hard in the face, producing a sad, drunken groan. Charlotte was ploughing through the crowds relentlessly, heading straight for the bar, and Raven could only follow in her wake.

"Miss Xavier?" It was an American voice, and Raven turned in surprise.

"Yes - and you are?"

The speaker was a neat young man in a smart suit, with shoes so highly polished that they kept reflecting lights into Raven's eyes. "MacTaggert. I've read your sister's thesis, and I really need to speak with her. It's a matter of some importance." His accent wasn't entirely American, now that Raven was listening closely - there was a Scottish burr somewhere underneath his big American vowels.

Raven eyed him up and down and he didn't flinch under the inspection. "I don't know how much you're going to get out of her this evening, but sure. Help me rescue her before she gets pawed to death."

MacTaggert watched Charlotte downing a yard glass to the cheers of a dozen students, and frowned.

"Yeah, I know what you're thinking -" Raven started, meaning to say _Charlotte drinks a lot_ but MacTaggert almost jumped out of his skin and his hand went to his hip where his gun wasn't.

*Charlotte!* Ravens projected as hard as he possibly could. *Emergency! He knows about mind-reading!*

By the time Raven had pulled Charlotte away from her admirers - and Charlotte had stopped making eyes at some random brunette - Raven had filled Charlotte in on MacTaggert's overreaction. Charlotte, in return, had filled Raven in on the fact that the man was a CIA agent.

*Do you think he's met a telepath?* Raven was trying to shake Charlotte sober, but it wasn't really working.

*Oooooh, no, maybe? He's met some mutants, Raven! More of us! Oh, and with some really groovy mutations!*

*Don't let on to the CIA that you know!* Raven snapped, and dragged his sister over to the small table where MacTaggert was waiting for them - closer to the door than they were, Raven noted.

Charlotte threw herself into the chair opposite MacTaggert and stared into his face.

"Miss Xavier? Are you all right?"

Charlotte reached out and carefully touched the tip of MacTaggert's nose, and his eyes nearly crossed following her finger in. "I am very, very, very drunk. And that's very, very, very much all right with me. Also! You can call me Doctor Xavier!" She beamed up at Raven. "Now we'll know which of us people are talking to!"

Raven put his hands on Charlotte's shoulders, intending to pull her away, when he caught sight of MacTaggert's face. The man's expression was as glazed as Charlotte's. She was reading his mind, the physical contact aiding her. The images fed straight to Raven's brain, too: a skinny young man in white leather pants whose skin turns to diamond; a pretty olive-skinned woman sitting at a bar flicking whirlwinds from her hands, her skirt and long hair fluttering; a solidly built woman with bright red skin and plain black clothing reaching out her hands to a cringing man in a tuxedo; all of them paying attention to a handsome, well-dressed older woman in an expensive suit that wouldn't have been out of place on one of their mother's friends. The crimson-faced woman and the man she had grabbed suddenly vanish in a puff of reddish-black smoke. MacTaggert - inexplicably wearing only his underwear, and Raven certainly appreciated the glimpse of nice legs - reels back from his hidden viewpoint.

Random images came to Raven as Charlotte rummaged lightly through the CIA agent's mind - his superiors laughing at his claims, a picture of the man in the tuxedo now wearing an army uniform - but no more mutants came to mind. Raven could hardly catch his breath: at least three more people like them, and all in one place! And two of them had physical manifestations of their powers, the same as Raven!

Charlotte removed his finger from the end of MacTaggert's nose, and he continued with their conversation as if there'd been no interruption, which to him there hadn't.

"Doctor Xavier, my apologies. My name is MacTaggert, and I work for the CIA. I need your help."

"The direct approach at last," Raven muttered, impatient to find out more.

"Ma'am. Doctor Xavier, I need to ask you if it's possible that these mutated humans you write about - could they exist today?"

"Mr MacTaggert, Marcus, I think you have seen some very interesting things."

MacTaggert, unlike most people, had the presence of mind to react to being told information - his first name - that he hadn't actually given yet. His hand went halfway to his hip again, but Charlotte caught his hand and smiled at him.

"Marcus, we want to help you. No, we need to help you. Whoever these people are - Communists, gangsters, a big misunderstanding - they're like us. All this time…I've caught flickers of others, but I've never managed to find them."

MacTaggert obviously valued his mission - or maybe Charlotte and Raven's thrilled smiles - above his suspicion, because he took Charlotte's hand in both of his and, his face entirely earnest, said, "Doctor Xavier, Miss Xavier, thank you for trusting me. If we can prove this to my Director, we'll take a big step forward in national security."

\---

The CIA certainly had a nice line in jets, Charlotte thought to herself. She was still adjusting to only being within range of five people instead of fifteen thousand. Raven was beside her, of course; the pilot and co-pilot who were, thankfully, thoroughly focused on flying the plane; and MacTaggert and his partner sitting across from them, hauling out files from a briefcase.

"So, I'm not saying that I can back up MacTaggert," the partner, Levine, said. "I'm asking which is easier to believe: that Colonel Hendry would book a ticket to Las Vegas, be seen at the airport and checking into his hotel, be spotted by us outside a party that we knew he was going to, and then somehow get to DC in under ten minutes, or that all our intel and all the people who saw him were wrong."

MacTaggert nodded. "Either way, we've got a hard sell. Agent Levine's got permission to at least discuss this case with you, but please remember the documents you signed."

"The ones where we can never ever tell, cross our hearts and hope to die?" Charlotte quirked an eyebrow. Agent Levine was not pleased to have to babysit two "chicks", no matter how hot they were, and Charlotte was not inclined to bother impressing him. Agent MacTaggert, at least, was far too alarmed by what he had seen to be anything but grateful for their help.

MacTaggert opened one of the files and turned it around on the low table so that Raven and Charlotte could see. The attached photo showed the well-dressed older woman from MacTaggert's memories, this time in a pants suit with pearls.

"This is Sabrina Shaw. Wealthy American father, German mother, was visiting family in Munich when the war started. Nobody's quite sure what happened after that, but at some stage late in the war she made it to Switzerland. In the immediate aftermath she was a major donor to the Red Cross and personally assisted with the organisation of the DP camps."

"Sounds like a saint." Raven did not seem impressed.

MacTaggert nodded. "Well, no-one had their eye on her until quite recently. Her family was part of a private club for wealthy Bostonites. Intel gathered by the FBI showed that she had taken over the running of the club and was using the money, drugs and parties to influence senior US military personnel, among others."

"She's also spent time and money in East Germany and Russia, which is where we came in," Levine added. "Miss Xavier, Doctor Xavier, you might not know this, but it's not uncommon for people who suffered under the Nazis to swing too far in the opposite direction, start sympathising with the Reds."

"Like the Rosenbergs." Charlotte was rapidly running out of patience for Levine's slow and careful explanations.

"Exactly right!" Levine smiled as if Charlotte is a particularly bright five-year-old - and Charlotte picked up the usual unpleasant mix of lust and condescension, plus a reminder to himself not to trust the Jews - but Raven put a warning hand on Charlotte's arm.

*You're taking a job with these people - don't start antagonising them at 30,000 feet!*

*They're idiots, they can't tell.*

*Calm down, Charlotte. Do you want a drink?*

Charlotte rubbed her throbbing temples. *No, I used to be able to deal with small numbers of people. I need practice.*

*Well, don't start by telling them our old plan to rescue the Rosenbergs, okay?*

Charlotte pasted on a smile and looked to MacTaggert instead. "Has Miss Shaw displayed any mutant abilities herself?"

"Not that I saw, but of course we weren't looking for any such thing. Is there any way you can tell, Doctor Xavier?"

"Not yet, I'm sorry. With your resources, though, I'd love to find some more practical applications for my work." Charlotte made herself focus only on MacTaggert's thoughts, letting Levine's and the two pilots' - now that they were safely in the air they were chatting about the alleged sexual exploits of an air hostess in Madrid - fade into the background. She used to be better at this. The constantly crowded, ridiculously concentrated minds of Oxford had dragged her into bad habits and too much alcohol.

MacTaggert was attracted to both Charlotte and Raven, which didn't surprise Charlotte, but he was much more focused on how he could explain all of this to his superior officers and hoping desperately that Charlotte wouldn't flake out on him. His mind was not unpleasant to be around.

"I'm not going to flake out on you," Charlotte told him, laying a hand on MacTaggert's arm.

"How did you - oh, of course. My apologies, Doctor Xavier. It's just that this is very new, and I'm sure you're aware that people don't always take well to the new."

"Even in such attractive packages," Levine added helpfully.

Raven stood up. "I need to fix my make-up. Charlotte, are you coming?" She stalked to the rear of the plane, and Charlotte made her apologies and followed.

 

There wasn't actually a ladies' room on the plane, but the bathroom was spacious enough for both Raven and Charlotte to squeeze in.

*Charlotte, they're idiots. Well, Levine is. Can you really work with people like that?*

Charlotte opened her purse and got out her lipstick, ostentatiously making Raven's excuse concrete. *Why, do you think it's any different at the university? Any of the universities where I interviewed?*

*No, but at least you're with your peers there. And you can work on your research.*

*Here we can find more mutants!* She blotted her lips on a tissue and glared at Raven. "You're the one always encouraging me to try something new and not lock myself up in a library. Well, here we are."

"Field research? Okay, then." Raven switched to projecting. *Promise me you'll reconsider once we've found these mutants that MacTaggert saw.*

*Deal.* "And let's have a drink - this plane trip is intolerable sober."

\---

Charlotte looked around in panic as everyone yelled about spies and pointed at MacTaggert, but Raven had the wits to show them something undeniable. He changed into one of the senior CIA agents and everyone fell silent, shocked.

The man whose appearance he'd borrowed sat back and threw up his hands. "Now what, MacTaggert? Now what?"

"I thought that -"

"You thought that we'd take the Xavier sisters and what? Send them out in the field? So you've proved your point. What are we supposed to do with them?"

"I'm offering my help," Charlotte said, but the men kept talking over her.

"And why are so many of them women anyway? We want weapons, here, MacTaggert, intelligence, and you bring me women."

There was one female agent tucked away in the corner, a solid older woman with olive skin and horn-rimmed glasses. She leaned forward to speak to Stryker. "The research facility has space. We could investigate what the Xavier sisters can do."

Charlotte smiled at the woman - Frieda Duncan - and got up to go shake her hand. "Actually, Agent Duncan, I was rather hoping that I'd be able to do some of the investigating."

Duncan opened her mouth to reply, but Stryker leapt up and got between them. He pointed at Charlotte. "Shut your pretty little mouth and sit down!" Stryker bellowed. "You will do as you're told! I may not like it, but Duncan's the one with the security clearance, not you, and -"

Charlotte put her fingers to her temple and everyone stopped. She'd really had enough of this.

"Thanks, Charlotte," Raven came over to stand by her side. "I don't think we'll get much help here."

"I really wish we could have. They're completely out of their league and they could use some help. Let me take a moment to erase their memories right back to the end of my lecture." She concentrated hard, and Raven gently rubbed her shoulders. "There. I suppose I should wake up MacTaggert."

MacTaggert looked dazed for a moment, then briefly terrified as he took in the scene before him, all his colleagues frozen mid-argument. To his credit, he didn't feel the need to accuse or attack Charlotte or Raven.

"Don't worry," Charlotte told him. "They won't remember any of this."

"I'm terribly sorry - I really thought they'd be more open to this. They spend millions on research every year, but when their research walks in the door, well. Again, my apologies." MacTaggert was sincere, if scared, but there was an underlying hope that Charlotte and Raven weren't about to turn against the CIA.

Charlotte laughed. "I'm not going to betray you, Marcus. It's not the fault of the United States that she has fools for agents. Raven and I will find those other mutants ourselves. Please stay out of danger - you know how easy it is for a mutant to cause harm."

MacTaggert nodded. "I appreciate your patriotism, Doctor Xavier, I really do. Agent Duncan would be very interested to meet you again, I'm sure. Can I give you her direct phone number, at least?"

"I don't think that will be necessary," Charlotte replied. "We'll find her if we need her. But thanks."

Raven grinned at MacTaggert. "I think we'll be better agents on our own anyway!"

Charlotte touched her temple again and re-froze MacTaggert along with the rest, then took Raven's arm. They made sure to depart the premises before Charlotte let the frozen agents go, in case there was a problem - large groups of people were often more diverse in their minds than they seemed, and it was possible that someone would remember what had happened.

"Where to now?" Raven asked as Charlotte hijacked a driver to take them into DC. "Maybe we should have talked to Agent Duncan."

"No, we don't need to do that! Those senior agents had more up-to-date information on Sabrina Shaw than MacTaggert or Levine did - right now, she's on a yacht in Miami."

Raven grinned and leaned forward to talk to the driver. "To the airport, please!"

"Thank you, Agent Xavier," Charlotte said, with a regal wave of her hand.

"You're welcome, Agent Xavier! Or should it be Agent Doctor Xavier?"

"I don't know! I'm just enjoying all these ambisexual titles."

\---

As soon as they stepped off the plane, Raven fell in love with Miami. It hadn't been a fun flight, via Atlanta and Jacksonville, especially as Charlotte had grimly reported the pilot's concern about rattling in the engines. The delighted feeling wasn't mere relief at putting his feet on solid ground: the sunset was gorgeous, the blossoms were tropical, and everyone was wearing considerably fewer clothes than they had been in Oxford or Washington DC.

"Do you think I can manage to make a Hawaiian shirt? They're pretty groovy," he asked the hung over and grouchy Charlotte, who was hiding her eyes from the last rays of the sun.

"I don't care, Raven, as long as you get me some sunglasses."

Raven escorted his cringing sister to a shop inside the big, shiny passenger terminal to buy them each a pair of sunglasses and Charlotte a big hat. Raven's natural dark blue skin never burned, and that seemed to apply to his fake fair skin as well. He'd have to remember to either tan or flush tomorrow, or the paleness of England would be a terrible giveaway for a girl with no hat. Charlotte had no such luck, and burned at the slightest touch of sun.

They only had overnight bags with them, and those were packed for Washington, not Miami. Raven got Charlotte settled in the airport bar with big sunglasses and a martini, and headed for the money exchange, then the row of shops. Even at six in the evening they were all open and busy, people dashing everywhere with giant suitcases and oversized souvenirs, perky air hostesses striding to catch their flights or limping off them, hawkers welcoming tourists and arguing with security guards. Raven checked out the bathing suits until he was confident he could make himself one - ruching wasn't as tricky as it looked. Sometimes he wondered if he was supposed to be a girl, with the love he had for fashion, but he'd seen plenty of men taking as much joy in dressing. Women simply had more variety, and Raven liked that. He didn't need to choose a sex to wear a two-piece bathing suit: his body was more versatile than that.

He took his selection to Charlotte, who was perking up greatly now that was she off the plane and had gin in her system, so they could change from "rumpled escapees from the CIA" to "elegant tourist sisters on a holiday".

"What did you get me?" Charlotte pawed through her bag. "I hope it's nothing too alarming."

Raven stripped off the parts of his clothes that were actually clothes and made himself a pretty cotton halter dress in a bright Hawaiian print.

Charlotte blinked. "Thanks for getting me sunglasses before you did that."

Raven twirled. "You don't like it?"

"It's very you. Not very me."

"Don't worry," Raven sighed. "I bought you something duller."

Charlotte pulled out a bathing suit and kimono-style wrap and raised her eyebrows. The clothes were certainly more restrained in colour that Raven's - the bathing suit was baby blue, the wrap a subdued flower print - but a long way from the A-line skirts and crisp shirts that Charlotte usually wore.

"Come on! We're in Florida! I've got you sandals, too." Raven complained, but opened the other bag and threw Charlotte a plain white shirt dress. "Bathing suit tomorrow, okay? "

"Deal." Charlotte sent Raven an image of her parading around the streets of Oxford in the bathing suit and wrap, and they both laughed, especially at the realistic goose pimples on her exposed legs.

\---

The morning was lost to Charlotte's hangover recovery - longer than usual, which Charlotte attributed to all the air travel - but the afternoon saw Raven and Charlotte strolling around beachside Miami. After Charlotte had looked out their hotel window and got a good look at what everyone else was wearing, she'd had no more compunctions about wearing a bathing suit, wrap and sandals out in public - this close to the water, everyone from small children to elderly matriarchs were dressed for sun and swimming. Only people who were working wore slightly more, and even then the businessmen were mostly in shorts and knee-high socks. Raven was in his element, wearing as few clothes as possible, as he'd done as a child.

Back then, little Charlotte hadn't thought it strange at all that her new sister liked to run around naked. Her skin felt quite different to Charlotte's, the soles of her feet were tough, and she didn't seem to feel the cold until the temperature hit freezing. Charlotte was engaged in her own project to go barefoot and toughen up the soles of her feet - what if she happened to be kidnapped by pirates and had to work in the rigging? - but apart from flinching and cold toes, she wasn't getting far. The eye patch that Nanny had made them was pretty great, though.

"Arr, First Mate Raven!" Charlotte yelled, running along the hall to the bathroom, "I hear tell there be treasure, arrrr!" The door was open, so she ran right in.

"Go away! I'm peeing!" Raven shouted, and Charlotte skidded to a halt. Raven was peeing standing up. Charlotte had never seen an actual boy's penis before, but there were plenty on the sculptures around the garden and in the art and medical books.

"Wait…you're a boy?"

Raven finished peeing and tucked the penis back under the hard pad of skin that protected her - his - groin. "I don't know! Mostly I don't think about it."

Charlotte put her fingers to her temple and rifled through Raven's mind. "Most people are pretty clear which one they are, even when it doesn't match what they look like on the outside. Do you want to be a girl? Or a boy?"

Raven scowled. "I said I don't know! And stop reading my mind, I don't like it!"

Although Charlotte was just reaching out a hand to direct Raven to the sink for hand-washing - Raven wasn't very good at indoor living yet - Raven flinched away as if Charlotte was about to hit her.

"Leave me alone!"

Charlotte took a step back at once. "No, I'm sorry. I would never hurt you. But wash your hands, please, so we don't get dysentery."

"Yuk," said Raven warily, and kept an eye on Charlotte while washing. "And you hurt my head when you look in it."

"Then I promise I will never do that again, unless you let me," Charlotte replied magnanimously.

Raven smiled again. "Oh good! Do you want me to be a boy or a girl? I don't mind, really."

Taking Raven's now-clean hand, Charlotte led her towards their bedrooms, where one of the four-poster beds was serving pretty well as a pirate ship. "Well, I've convinced everyone that you're a girl, so you'd better stick with that around other people. But when we're alone, I'll call you 'he' because that's universal." Charlotte had been sulky about this grammatical use when she learned it, but now it was suddenly useful. She hardly wanted to call Raven "it", as if he wasn't a human being.

"Okay!" Raven was entirely unbothered now that Charlotte wasn't trying to read his mind and jumped up on the bed. "Ahoy, a whale! And a mermaid!"

\---

Here in Miami, Charlotte didn't make it out of bed before midday, but Raven had been outside in the heat four times. When he bounced back into the hotel room, Charlotte wasn't at all surprised that he wasn't wearing any real clothes for warmth, as he did in Oxford. In fact, he was covered only by a skimpy hot pink two-piece and a tan, his hair shorter than usual to keep it off his neck.

"Come on, Charlotte," he whined. "You're missing everything! I saw a bright green girl and thought she might be like us, but she was actually wearing body paint and handing out flyers. Still, no-one even looked twice!"

Charlotte struggled out of bed. "No way, Raven. Even if no-one looked at you being blue, there's your eyes and your scales, and we don't know that Miss Shaw's mutants want to be found. We have to be stealthy."

Raven stuck out his tongue, but fortunately stopped dropping hints about showing his real form. "Well, if we want to find them, there's a lot of ground to cover. Get dressed and I'll take you to the coffee. Don't forget your hat!"

Despite the bright sun, busy beach and unexpectedly hot weather, Miami was surprisingly relaxing for Charlotte. No-one here was ever likely to see her again, so she felt no compunction gently floating her consciousness along in other people's minds instead of blocking everything. She'd found very young that people tended to make close and often inappropriate bonds with her if she spent too long in their heads. It was a forced and unnatural intimacy that never worked out well, so, apart from a few short holidays, she hadn't allowed herself this degree of freedom in a decade at Oxford. The big sunglasses made it easy to watch the attractive people in very little clothing wandering by. There were even some body builders posing and flexing down on the beach, and there were women among them, deeply tanned to show off their smooth, thick muscles. Charlotte brushed against their thoughts and smiled at their sheer pleasure in their own control and power.

She wasn't here to enjoy herself, though. The marina was much, much bigger than they had expected, and Charlotte was looking through the heads of the regular beach-goers for glimpses of Sabrina Shaw's yacht, the _Caspartina_. She'd certainly caught a few images of the vessel and even one of Miss Shaw getting out of a taxi at a restaurant two blocks from Raven and Charlotte's hotel, but nothing yet that indicated the yacht's likely position. The two of them had checked out the restaurant, where they had found that Miss Shaw and a blonde younger man were occasional diners there; that she paid the bill herself and was a moderate-to-good tipper; and that staff opinion was divided on whether the pretty young man was a relative or a gold-digging boyfriend. The man was the same one who MacTaggert had seen in Las Vegas, though now dressed more conventionally in a white linen suit and with no sign of sparkling diamond skin. Raven and Charlotte were definitely on the right track.

Currently, Raven was in the shape of an older man with calloused hands and the swollen nose of a chronic drunk - the marina's supervisor. Charlotte had tried to get the location of the _Caspartina_ 's dock from his mind, but unfortunately the alcohol had damaged his short-term memory to the extent that the details simply weren't there for Charlotte to find. Instead, Charlotte had suggested that he go home an hour early, giving Raven time to search through his disorganised office. Charlotte needed a drink after going through the supervisor's brain - his thoughts about Raven and Charlotte were more repulsive than most - so now she reclined on a comfortable chair on the balcony of a bar that overlooked the beach, second elaborate cocktail in hand, enjoying the afternoon breezes.

*How are you doing, Raven?*

*This is the most disorganised office I've ever had to ransack. Even worse than that professor who had it in for you in second year.*

Charlotte nearly slopped her drink in surprise. *That was you who posted his photographs on his college's noticeboard?*

*Of course, silly! He cheated on his wife with attractive undergrads and was silly enough to take photos, and then he was mean to you for knocking him back.*

*I can't say he didn't deserve it. I just didn't know it was you!*

*Well, he may have had pornographic photographs stashed all over his office, but at least he didn't have ants. This is revolting.*

*Sorry, Raven. Do you want me to come to you and help?*

*Oh, wait! I've got it! Stay where you are, I'll find you, then we'll go find the other mutants!*

*I'll drink to that!*

\---

The marina was much, much bigger than Charlotte and Raven had thought, and the _Caspartina_ was docked at the far end, nearly two miles away. Nonetheless, it was a pleasant evening stroll in the tropical sunset, despite Charlotte's sandals starting to pinch a little. Raven was a genius at picking a shoe that would fit well, but he couldn't do anything about new leather digging in. Charlotte was determined to be a good sport about it, and didn't say a thing until they reached the _Caspartina_ 's dock to find it missing.

"Bloody buggering death!" she cursed, throwing herself down on the dock to take off her stupid shoes. "I don't want to have to return to the CIA for more information, if they even have any!"

Raven looked out to sea, peering at the lights of several luxury yachts in the darkness. "They can't have gone far. The records said they were paid up to the end of the week. Maybe they're cruising around the bay."

"Or they could have gone out into the open ocean. We're never going to find these mutants!"

Raven shook Charlotte's shoulder, nearly knocking off her big hat, and pointed out to sea. "Look!"

A larger ship had suddenly approached from the ocean and its giant spotlight was dazzling. The light shone directly onto a vessel, and that vessel was the _Caspartina_. The yacht was close enough that Raven and Charlotte could see not just the name on the stern but at least three people silhouetted on the upper deck.

The loudspeaker was easy to hear, even from shore. "THIS IS THE US COAST GUARD! DO NOT ATTEMPT TO LEAVE YOUR VESSEL! STAY WHERE YOU ARE! "

"It's the CIA! I can feel MacTaggert and Levine on that ship!"

Raven yelled at Charlotte. "The mutants must be out there! You should warn them!"

Charlotte hesitated for a moment - it didn't seem that Miss Shaw was a particularly nice person, judging from MacTaggert's memories - but Raven was right. The CIA didn't have anything good planned for Miss Shaw and her mutant friends, and there was no reason why Charlotte shouldn't make contact with the first other mutants that they had met.

She reached out cautiously, and was astonished to be shoved away, her image of the people on the boat cracking like crystal and slipping sideways.

"Raven! Someone on that boat is a telepath!" She jumped to her feet in delight and tried again. *I'm a friend!*

The weird crystal effect was a very effective shield indeed - Charlotte couldn't even talk to the people on the yacht, let alone influence them. Suddenly, other minds came into range - military minds, focused on their mission to capture the dangerous Commie spies. Charlotte hesitated, unsure how many she could affect at once, and in that moment their minds screamed in shock as waterspouts hit their inflatable boats and sent them flying in all directions; a few died instantly, most swam for their lives.

"I don't think they need our help," Charlotte said, clutching at Raven's hand for support.

"I can't see - were those tiny little hurricanes? Precisely targeted hurricanes? What MacTaggert saw, but much bigger!"

"Yes! Amazing! Oh, Raven, I wish the telepath would let me talk to them!"

Raven pulled Charlotte towards a small motorised dinghy tied to a moored yacht. "Come on, let's go to them before they make a break for it. Stay in touch, and maybe you'll be able to get through when they're not being attacked."

They both climbed down into the dinghy. Charlotte quickly pulled the operating instructions from a woman asleep on the yacht then fed them to Raven. It wasn't the first time they'd learned a skill that way, and Charlotte needed to concentrate on trying to reach the telepath. Another telepath! Amazing!

*I'm a friend! A friend!* Charlotte continued to broadcast at the yacht as Raven guided them towards it. The Coast Guard didn't seem to be launching any further attacks, but nor had the _Caspartina_ tried to flee. Charlotte was beginning to understand how the diamond shield worked - it was a very clever skewing of perspective that wouldn't take much effort at all - and although she still couldn't sense the telepath, she could feel the other two minds on the boat. One was a young woman, alert and focused; the other was an older woman brimming with amusement and confidence, presumably Miss Shaw. Of the people MacTaggert had seen, that left only the red-skinned woman and the young blond man.

Raven turned the boat so fast that Charlotte nearly fell out, and landed in a heap in the bottom of the dinghy. "Raven, what-"

"Look with your eyes, Charlotte!"

Blinking away her telepathic focus, Charlotte looked up to see a massive anchor poised above the boat, the chain swaying behind it. A moment later it plunged into the yacht, dragging through it in a massive swathe of destruction. Debris rained from the vessel on both sides, and Raven quickly piloted them a little further away for safety.

"That's not the CIA," Charlotte gasped, "That's another mutant! How many of us are there?"

Raven cheered, his voice barely audible as the anchor chain made another violent pass through the yacht. Splintered wood flew everywhere, warped metal splashing after it. "You always said there could be hundreds of us!"

Charlotte crouched down in the dinghy and tried to reach the telepath again. For a second the diamond shield dropped and Charlotte managed to yell, clumsy as she hadn't been for a decade, *My name's Charlotte! I'm a friend!* Something else cut them off completely and Charlotte couldn't feel the three people from the yacht any more. Not far away there was another mind, burning with anger and murderous determination. It was a woman and her mind was totally unshielded, absolutely focused on the anchor chain, and Charlotte could feel her violent emotion as if she were being stabbed with it.

"Are you okay?" Raven leaned forward to put a hand on Charlotte's shoulder. "Charlotte? You look terrible."

"The other mutant is in the water. She hates, she hates so much, I can't - "

Raven gave her a hard shake. "Let go. You're too close."

"She's tired, Raven, the anchor was too much - oh!" Charlotte pulled away, then, in sheer surprise. "There's a submarine! That's where they all went!"

"Now there's a submarine? Charlotte, I think these people are capable of looking after themselves against the CIA. We should get out of here." Raven turned their small boat towards the dock.

Charlotte put her fingers to her temple again, still staying low in the boat. "Wait, wait! The woman in the water - she's trying to stop the submarine. It's pulling her under, Raven, she's going to drown!" She got to her feet and stripped down to her bathing suit, fully intending to dive into the water.

"Sit down, Charlotte! If you jump in now you'll have to swim through all that debris and you'll be too late." Raven steered their dinghy around the worst of the wreckage.

Charlotte obeyed, leaning far forward as if she could make them go faster, feeling the woman's energy draining away as her strength and her air ran out. "You're saying that to stop me going after her."

"No, Charlotte, I'm saying that because I don't want you to die. And I need you to stop the Coast Guard seeing us. Now link to me and show me where to go."

"Oh, of course!" It was easy for Charlotte to split her attention: the woman's focus was so strong, even now, that Charlotte couldn't lose her if she tried. With a little time to rest, Charlotte probed for the woman's name, so she could call out to her, perhaps break her intense concentration and make her release the submarine before she went to the bottom of the ocean with it.

Names were usually easy to grab. People often introduce themselves; their family and friends and workmates address them; people sign documents and cheques and letters; people are alert to their own name in speech or text. This woman didn't have this familiar detritus at all, but, fortunately for Charlotte, someone had recently called her by her name. Charlotte had no trouble skimming the immediate and terrifying memory out of the woman's head - she was Erika Lehnsherr. Hearing her own name was so overwhelming and unfamiliar to her that Charlotte held on a moment longer in fascination and saw that Erika's name was, in fact, strongly connected to something else, a distinct memory.

There is a girl in a cellar, with sunlight peeping through the slats of the floor above. She is hungry, as usual. She and her parents have written their names in the dirt floor with a stick, and now her mother tells her to scrub out the names with her foot. They are Alois, Edyta and Erika now, names and papers that might buy them precious time. Erika destroys out the old names with such determination that Charlotte can't see what they were.

"It will help you remember," says Mama, says Edie, speaking German as she always does now.

"Charlotte! Can you still find her!" Raven had to yell because the Coast Guard now had a helicopter in the air. The spotlight was sweeping the sea in search of the submarine, but they weren't going to find it: it was completely submerged, and so was Erika.

"Yes! Stay here, I'm going in to get her!" Charlotte stepped off the side of the dinghy and into the water. She wasn't the most athletic of women, but when her boarding school had forced them to choose a sport, the only one available that didn't involve teamwork - and thus too many chances for telepathic accidents - was swimming. Four years of ploughing up and down the length of an icy salt-water pool every morning stood her in good stead now. She cut easily through the water, making straight for Erika's location: even as Erika's mind started to shut down, her rage was a beacon. Once Charlotte dove beneath the water, she could hear the submarine groaning as it pulled away, dragging Erika with it by her outstretched hands. The woman's strength was astonishing: she was actually slowing down a submarine.

Charlotte shook her head. She didn't have time to be amazed. She grabbed Erika around the shoulders, as she had been taught in school, because drowning people were often irrational and would fight their rescuers. *You can't,* she projected. *You'll drown.*

Erika didn't fight back: instead she kept her hands pointed towards the submarine, that intense focus only slightly hindered by Charlotte's desperate attempt at rescue.

*You have to let go. I know what this means to you, but you're going to die. Please, Erika, let go.*

She didn't know what made Erika release the submarine - if it was the oxygen deprivation, the surprise of telepathic speech, or Erika's strength running out - but Charlotte was fairly sure that it wasn't her persuasive skills that did it. As soon as she let go Charlotte could propel the two of them upwards with strong kicks, holding Erika against her body with both arms.

Erika didn't resist until they made it to the surface, where after a few huge breaths she immediately shook Charlotte off. "Who are you?" she shouted, her wet hair clinging to her face.

"I'm Charlotte Xavier; I'm like you." Charlotte looked around for Raven, and quickly found him. *Raven! We're here! We're okay!*

*Never do that again!* Raven snapped, but his relief was palpable through his anger. *I'm not far, stay there.*

Erika wasn't trying to get away, but looking at Charlotte in stunned amazement. "You were in my head."

"I'm like you, Erika."

"I thought I was alone." She sounded Irish, of all things, though Charlotte had no idea what she had expected.

Charlotte grinned so wide that salt water splashes into her mouth. "You're not alone."

Erika just stared. The dinghy appeared out of the darkness, puttering along slowly amid the debris - the Coast Guard vessel had moved on, and the men in the water seemed to have got themselves out - and it was a mark of how astonished Erika was that she looked to Charlotte for a cue.

"Don't worry, that's my sibling, Raven." Charlotte didn't bother with the usual gender obfuscation. Here was another mutant: they didn't need to hide.

Raven cut the engine and Erika paddled slowly to the dinghy, but was too weak to pull herself over the side. The remnants of Charlotte's mental link showed her that Erika was so exhausted that she could barely move her limbs.

*Raven, please help her.*

If Erika thought it was odd that a woman had the physical strength to drag another tall, athletic woman from the water and into the boat, she certainly didn't show it. She nodded a thank you and slumped in a heap. Raven reached down and gave Charlotte a hand up, too, and they set off for the docks.

\---

Erika's arms and legs gave way like cheap elastic, and her lungs burned. Schmidt had been there, right in front of her, and all she'd done was laugh. If there were more people with Erika's abilities, of course Schmidt would have found them and trained them. It made sense: the boy on the boat who had glared at Erika and dragged old horror and pain into the present must be a newer project. Schmidt had openly admitted she was only a Nazi for convenience's sake; here she was continuing her work in America. That didn't explain the two attractive young women in bathing suits who had rescued Erika from the water. Charlotte Xavier had pulled Erika away from the submarine, but even Erika could see that she hadn't been strong enough to stop Schmidt. It wasn't as if Charlotte had saved Schmidt from Erika - quite the opposite, really.

Her head hurt. Minutes ago, everything had been so clear. Erika needed to kill Schmidt and Schmidt was there for the killing. Without Charlotte, she would have died, and while part of her was angry that Charlotte had turned her from her path as easily as Erika would turn a bullet, another, more familiar, part was even angrier at Schmidt for being alive, and Erika's death would have meant nothing without Schmidt's to go with it.

"Thank you," she rasped, her throat sore.

Charlotte threw an arm around Erika's shoulders, utterly familiar, and offered her a steel flask of water. "Here. Drink. You've had a long night."

Erika did, though she shrugged out of Charlotte's embrace. Charlotte looked a little hurt, but covered it well. She was a very pretty woman, even in a sagging bathing suit with her hair soaking wet and clinging to her shoulders; Erika couldn't work out why she spoke with an English accent and her sibling sounded American, but she couldn't work out much about these two. It didn't seem to matter whether she spoke out loud or not, because Charlotte answered her anyway.

"Oh, I spent my childhood in Britain, then we came back to America during the war - my father was American, you see. That's when I found Raven, and even though we moved to Britain again later, he never lost the accent."

"You mean you never lost your accent," Raven snapped, fondly. "Where are you from, Erika?"

Erika wasn't sure why Charlotte referred to Raven as "he", but that was hardly the most unusual thing about them. "Uh, I was born in Germany, but I learned English in Ireland."

"That makes sense," Charlotte laughed. "And yes, Raven is one of us. A mutant."

"Mutant." Erika rolled the word around in her mind. "We're mutants."

"Oh, don't get Charlotte started. She's got a doctorate in genetics and she can go on for hours and hours and hours and…"

"What can you do?" Erika interrupted, astonished by Raven's new revelation: despite being like Erika, Charlotte was not only not an outcast but a highly educated woman.

"Go on, show her!" Charlotte grinned.

Raven shimmered blue, then instead of a handsome blonde woman, the American President, Kennedy, was steering their boat. He was wearing an expensive navy blue suit rather than a two-piece bathing suit, and was perfectly dressed down to the laces on his shoes.

Erika somehow summoned the energy to lean forward and touch the leg of Raven's pants. They felt exactly like a good wool cloth. "That's astounding. Raven, forgive me, I have never seen anyone so amazing."

Kennedy blushed, and the blue flicker appeared again, then the blonde woman in the hot pink bathing suit was there again. "Thanks. That's not usually the reaction I expect." Another flicker of blue, and Raven was a slim blue-skinned man with dark red hair and bright yellow eyes. He had delicate patches of scales on his face and body, and larger scales protecting his chest and genitals. He looked more uncertain now.

Erika couldn't help but smile in delight, a broad smile that she hadn't felt since the last time she killed a Nazi and watched him bleed out onto the floor. "You're so beautiful! I didn't know there were more people like us! But maybe we're all hiding away, alone." She looked Raven up and down in honest amazement: the ability to change himself made Erika both thrilled and slightly envious, all at once. She was more envious that Charlotte and Raven had had each other. That, more than anything, was telling her to stay with them for the moment. It was easier than thinking that she was going to have to start her hunt all over again with new parameters, easier than thinking that she had nowhere useful to go.

Charlotte patted Erika's shoulder. "It hasn't been all sunshine and roses: when I said that I found Raven, I really meant it. He was a starving child and broke into our kitchen."

Erika thought she could get to enjoy this half-spoken conversation, cutting out the awkwardness of speech and the irritatingly inaccurate overlaps of her languages. "I'm glad he found you."

This must have been the right thing to say, because Raven's wariness immediately vanished, and Charlotte, to Erika's surprise, threw her arms around Erika. She was utterly bewildered by these strange siblings and the bizarre new world she found herself in, but they were far more scared of her judgement than she was of their abilities. Erika knew she was a monster, but now she could think something that she hadn't thought since she was a child: perhaps it was what Schmidt had done to her that made her one, not something inherent in who she was.

Erika felt a little stronger now, and sat up straight, carefully extricating herself from Charlotte's hug. That was alarming, that Charlotte would make herself so utterly vulnerable to someone she had seen trying to kill people; it meant that Charlotte was either justifiably confident in her abilities or, alternatively, had never yet met a real challenge. Erika tended to think the latter.

"Miss Xavier, why were you here?" Best to get straight to the point, since Charlotte could read her mind.

"We were looking for, well, not you in particular, but other mutants. And it's Charlotte, please."

Raven interrupted. "The CIA tried to recruit Charlotte as an expert on mutants - they've seen some of Miss Shaw's people. It didn't go well, but we still wanted to find other people who were mutants, so we came down here to find Miss Shaw and the others."

"Who are they? There was a boy who attacked me with my own memories."

"He must be the telepath that was blocking me." Charlotte flicked an image to Erika, of Frau Doktor Schmidt in a neat suit, looking for all the world like someone's wealthy aunt. "That's Miss Shaw."

Erika grabbed Charlotte's arm, harder than she intended, twisting the skin, and Charlotte squeaked in surprise.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you. Whatever name she is using now, she is a very dangerous person and you must stay away from her. I knew her as Frau Doktor Schmidt, in Germany. She knows about mutants - she is fascinated by us - and she makes people into weapons."

Charlotte was staring at Erika in horror. "Oh, God, what did she do to you?"

"Charlotte, are you okay?" Raven brought the dinghy into dock. "Charlotte?"

Erika was starting to understand the feeling of Charlotte in her mind. It was oddly companionable, much the same as being in a room with someone else while you both went about your own business. Nonetheless, she didn't want Charlotte rifling through her life: she could see that Charlotte trusted her, but she did not entirely trust Charlotte. That other telepath had let Erika go when a very strong memory - her mother's death - had come up. Instead of focusing on that, Erika focused on the feel of the anchor crashing through Schmidt's boat, the relentless joy she had felt at hurting Schmidt.

"You're, ah, a very quick learner." Charlotte sat back, her face relaxing again. "I'm sorry to intrude on your mind. Your thoughts are very strong, very focused."

Raven had tied the dinghy to a yacht and climbed up a short ladder to the dock. "She says that to all the girls, Erika."

"Stay away from Shaw, Charlotte. She is not your friend."


	2. Miami to New York

Raven didn't think Erika Lehnsherr seemed the kind of person to readily go with two near-strangers. Yet Erika recovered her few belongings - in a small briefcase sealed in metal and buried deep in the sand, it turned out - then let Raven make Charlotte bring them a taxi to get the three of them to the hotel. Miami was the kind of place where no-one batted an eyelash at three damp-haired women in bathing suits and a wetsuit coming up from the beach near midnight. Erika was obviously physically exhausted, and Charlotte wasn't helping by holding on to her arm at all times. Raven couldn't work out what Charlotte was doing - hopefully not hitting on Erika, for all that she was Charlotte's type - until they got to their room. As they walked into the lobby - Raven and Charlotte in sandals, Erika barefoot - Raven realised that Charlotte was being protective. Charlotte stood herself between Erika and the reception desk, then had to steer them around to the elevator at the end of the row so that she was between Erika and the elevator attendant.

Erika must too tired to even shake Charlotte off, but Raven wasn't too tired to remind Charlotte of her manners, and there was yet another reversal for the day.

*Charlotte! Let the poor woman go - you're going to tip her over if you keep dragging on her arm.*

*No, Raven, you didn't see…we were very lucky we didn't find Doctor Shaw first. She's a monster.*

*Really? I thought you were just hitting on Erika. If she finds out you're pitying her, I doubt she's going to stay. And I like her.*

*Of course you do,* Charlotte snapped, but she stopped clinging so close to Erika. *She said you were beautiful. You love compliments.*

Raven blinked in surprise at Charlotte's sudden meanness. *You're the only other person who's ever said that while I was blue. Now shut up and leave Erika alone for a minute, if you can.*

Charlotte flicked her hair - a gesture that didn't work particularly well as it was damp and stiff with salt - and let go of Erika to open the door to their room. "Raven and I will share, Erika, you take the other bed."

"There's no need -" Erika protested, but Charlotte gently shoved her towards it and she sat down gratefully.

"You can't have many clothes in that case," Raven said, rummaging through their overnight bags. "Here, you're closer to my size than Charlotte's." He handed over his spare nightshirt. He preferred not to carry men's clothes with him, but his shoulders were noticeably broader in his male form and he usually shifted into his natural form in his sleep: mannish nightshirts in feminine colours were an easy compromise.

"Thank you. You are both very kind."

Raven threw a warning look at Charlotte, who was extending a hand towards Erika's shoulder. "Not at all - we're thrilled to meet another mutant."

"We'll help you find Doctor Shaw." Charlotte's gaze was intense. "You said she makes people into weapons - she has at least three mutants with her now. We need to protect them."

Raven nodded firmly, though he hadn't thought about the next step before Charlotte decided for them. "They don't deserve to be made to fight the CIA. Or whoever else Doctor Shaw is plotting against."

Erika glared right back at Charlotte. "They're not imprisoned. You don't know Shaw is making them work for her. I'd go right through them to get to Shaw."

"No," Charlotte replied. "There are more ways to imprison someone than with bars and walls, and you know that very well."

Abruptly nodding, Erika turned away. "Yes. Shaw saved my life in order to experiment on me. I should not assume that her hold on the others is any less."

"It doesn't mean they won't hurt us," Raven pointed out. He didn't want to be on the receiving end of one of those hurricanes. "We need to be prepared for that, too."

Erika looked up at him, appraising. "I'm going to have a shower, then we should sleep. I suspect we have much to talk about tomorrow." Without further discussion, she headed for the bathroom.

Raven sat down beside his sister. *If you offer to go help her out of that wetsuit, I am going to strangle you.*

Charlotte flopped down on the bed. *I don't even know if she's a dyke.*

*You usually have a pretty damn good idea.*

*Seriously, no idea. I don't think she's really attracted to anyone, not in that way. She doesn't think about it, anyway. I've never seen a mind quite like hers.*

Raven leaned over her, worried, and, as the shower had started in the bathroom, used his voice. "Don't get hurt, okay? You've only known Erika for a few hours and the first thing you felt about her was hatred."

"Not for us. For Doctor Shaw."

"Yeah, well, someone that angry isn't going to be a magical basket of sunshine the rest of the time, you know?"

The shower switched off. Charlotte jumped up and grabbed a few towels. "I'm next!" *You're worried because you're not sure you can beat her up if she hurts me.*

Raven frowned. *Yeah, that's pretty much true. Don't forget it.*

Erika returned from the bathroom in Raven's nightshirt and Raven observed her closely. She didn't look any less terrifying in a pale blue nightshirt than she did in a wetsuit with an empty knife sheath on her leg. Her hair was about the same length as Raven's in his natural form, tucked behind her ears; her small stud earrings were made of steel. She was tall and athletic rather than elegant, stringy muscles showing in her arms and legs. There was a series of burn scars scattered over one shin and several long, thin scars that looked like they'd been made with a scalpel. Her toenails were oddly misshapen and so were her fingernails, and there was a number tattooed on the inside of her left arm, below a smooth silvery circle of scar tissue from another burn. Raven knew what the number meant - Erika had been in a concentration camp - but couldn't take that line of thought any further.

"If you're looking at my scars," Erika said quietly, "At least do it in your own form. I am not hiding from you."

"It's not hiding. I'm more used to this shape by now." Raven pulled on his nightshirt and let go of his daytime form. It was strange, very strange, to be in a room with someone other than Charlotte and not have that feeling of holding his breath.

"Thank you. Your abilities are amazing, Raven. You use them so easily!"

Raven shrugged, uncomfortable. "It's not the same as Charlotte's power, or yours. I can't hit my enemy with a giant anchor or change their mind. Not that I have enemies."

"You have no enemies but the other shape is your usual one?"

"You know what I mean. Don't twist it. Did - did Doctor Shaw experiment on you in the camp?"

Erika didn't flinch or look away, and Raven was glad of that. Maybe that's why Charlotte had been able to feel Erika's hatred so clearly: Erika had channelled everything that had happened to her into one goal.

"Yes. She saved my life and destroyed it at the same time. Do you have any idea who the other mutants are? Charlotte said three mutants, but I saw only two."

Raven sat on the bed and, after a moment, Erika sat opposite him. "There's a CIA agent named MacTaggert who's been tracking Doctor Shaw because she's been bribing various high-up military officials."

Erika looked confused, but didn't interrupt.

"So MacTaggert caught up with her in Las Vegas and saw the two mutants you met tonight, plus an older woman with brick-red skin and a tail. MacTaggert knew he was out of his league, so he came to recruit Charlotte for her theories about genetics, to see how this could be possible. He took us to Washington and his superiors laughed us out of the room, but Charlotte got a whole lot of information out of their minds first. We could easily go and get more. There must be files and so on as well."

Erika grinned. "Good. This is very good."

"They have a separate facility for what they call 'Paranormal Research'," Charlotte added, emerging from the bathroom wrapped in big white towels. "If they're classifying Doctor Shaw's people with that department, we'll want to start there. Agent Duncan is in charge of it and she was going to take us to her facility - just for discussions, Erika, don't worry, they don't have any prisoners -"

"I wasn't worrying. I was planning."

"Yes, of course. We'll catch a plane to DC tomorrow and get started."

Erika tapped her fingers on the night stand. "Even if we only find details of Shaw's bribery, that will give us a number of leads. I thought she'd been hidden so well, but she was using an American name. She still associated with her old Nazi contacts occasionally, but I had almost run out of those."

Raven opened his mouth to ask how Erika was running out of them, then closed it again. He could tell it was going to be a peaceful night's sleep, three feet away from his sister's new friend, the Nazi-hunter.

When Raven woke up, it was to the sound of Charlotte giggling. He opened his eyes slowly - it must still be early - to see Charlotte sitting in the other bed with Erika. Charlotte had her knees pulled up under the sheet; Erika sat cross-legged, nodding at Charlotte's words.

"I've only really tested it in rats, but that might not be the only reason why more mutants seem to be female - a female foetus is more likely to survive adverse environmental conditions than a male. Which absolutely does not explain the greater chance of twins. But you're entirely right. I do have selection bias."

"You've given me four different and conflicting possibilities in less than five minutes. Is that scientific talk for 'I have no idea?'"

"It's scientific talk for 'this is a new field and a very exciting one, too.'"

Raven propped himself up on one elbow. "If you're really lucky, Erika, she'll read you her thesis."

Charlotte threw a pillow at him. "There's plenty of copies waiting in New York. You can read it yourself, then."

"We're going to New York?" Raven wondered what else he'd missed while sleeping.

"Oh, don't fret, Raven, we're not making secret plans without you. We have to go to the CIA to find more information on Doctor Shaw, as you said, but if there's no immediate leads I thought we could go home. I'm sick of hotels. I can't sleep."

Raven glanced over at the mini-bar, to find it surprisingly intact.

"Erika's dreams woke me, so I didn't try to doze off again. I'll take something for the plane, though. Good idea."

Concern washed over Erika's face. "It's difficult for you to block out other minds?"

"Raven and I had been in one place for several years until now - I was familiar with the patterns of Oxford, and very comfortable there, but I think I'm out of practice for everywhere else. And I hate being on planes."

"Does alcohol dull your power, then? It has little effect on mine, except for slowing my reflexes and ruining my aim." Erika seemed quite eager to share these details with them, which made Raven wonder again what his own life would have been like if he hadn't met Charlotte.

"No, no, I don't think anything dulls my power. It's to make people's thoughts more bearable. Some kinds of men, especially. I used to try to wrap myself up in oversized clothes and go unnoticed, until I realised that they didn't hate me in particular. It was women in general that terrified them, and I happened to be the nearest woman."

"Maybe there's just as many male mutants but the women have more need of the abilities," Erika muttered.

"It's why I don't date many men. Well, none, for years now. Most of them have been so built up by other men to hate and fear women, and I don't want to be around someone who thinks in that way."

"You date women, then?" Erika raised an eyebrow but didn't seem otherwise troubled. Then again, she hadn't been bothered by Raven being between sexes, either: her focus was elsewhere entirely.

"She certainly does," Raven replied. "Which is good, because it leaves the men for me."

Erika smiled at that, an expression which didn't go with the stern shape of her face at all, and Raven felt oddly proud of himself. He got out of bed.

"Erika, do you have any clothes with you? I can go and buy some if you want."

"Pfft, she can wear the wetsuit and I'll make people not look," Charlotte replied breezily.

Raven said, "I don't think that will be very comfortable on a plane," at the same moment as Erika said, "I have clothes. Not many, but I can buy more when I need them."

She climbed out of bed and opened the briefcase she'd brought from the beach, giving Raven a quick glimpse of a folded map and banknotes in at least two different currencies. She pulled out a plain black shift dress, black nylon stockings and flats, plus a pale green cardigan, impressively unwrinkled despite their small storage space. "Artificial fibres are a wonderful invention."

Raven took the shower and by the time he was dressed for the day in a repeat of yesterday's bright print dress, Erika had not only got herself dressed but somehow managed to get slug-a-bed Charlotte up and ready, too.

"I called the desk to make us flight reservations - we'll have plenty of time for breakfast before we have to go," Charlotte said brightly, putting on her make-up at of the dresser. Erika seemed happy with a nothing but a little mascara and a touch of lipstick, but she was painting her fingernails. "Do you want me to do your other hand, Erika?"

Erika smirked slightly and let go of the brush. It stayed poised in the air, held still by the metal band at the end of the handle, and then moved over to paint the nails of her right hand in smooth, even strokes.

Charlotte stared in delight, and Raven grinned. "Now, that's a power second only to mine." She changed the colour of her fingernails to a bright pink with a swish of her hand and went to pack up Charlotte's things.

\---

Washington DC was cooler than Miami, but as humid in the early evening. Charlotte had remembered the location of the facility without difficulty - when Frieda Duncan had thought about taking them there, she'd been quite specific about where she meant and how far it was from Langley - and Erika had stolen them a car to go out there.

"We can't hire a car if we're going to infiltrate a CIA facility," she told Charlotte. "Major cities are full of spies and they're all trying to get the jump on each other. Car rental agencies take payments to report on their customers, especially those with foreign accents."

"How do you know that?" Charlotte wondered, not sure if she should simply offer to erase the rental clerk's memory of them.

"I worked in a car rental agency in Zurich for a month or so, for just such a purpose. It was very informative."

Before Charlotte could offer her alternative, Erika had briskly walked away at a speed Charlotte would never match with her short legs and high heels, and Raven ran after her, leaving Charlotte on the kerb with the overnight bags. Erika had taken her briefcase with her, of course.

*Raven? Where is she taking you?*

*The parking lot, I think!*

Charlotte sighed and sat down on her small suitcase, telepathically fending off the men who desired to rush to her assistance. She had been quite looking forward to the flight - at least she'd be able to focus on Erika and her powerful, intent thoughts to help keep everyone else out - but instead Erika's cheerful mood had turned as soon as they'd boarded the plane. Charlotte wasn't sure whether it was because of being trapped in a tube with dozens of other people or if it was the sudden lack of control over her environment in the aluminium aeroplane, but Erika had been nothing but sour and snappish. On top of that, Erika was mildly airsick - the two drinks she'd put away hadn't muted it at all - and suddenly her mind was the last thing Charlotte wanted as an anchor. Instead, she'd swapped seats with Raven and tried to sleep while Raven and Erika bickered over Raven's polite offer to swap one of their sandwiches so that Erika didn't have to eat ham. Erika, it turned out, didn't keep kosher and took offence both at Raven assuming she was a Jew - even though she was - and at Raven touching her lunch.

Still, they seemed to be getting along much better now that they were on solid ground. They returned to Charlotte in a few minutes, in a pretty blue Chevrolet. Raven was grinning widely in the passenger seat and Erika seemed pleased with herself, too. Charlotte felt a weird flash of jealousy that Erika was so comfortable with Raven even after seeing his blue skin - that was Charlotte's role, no-one else's - but shook the thoughts out of her head. It was a wonderful thing to have a friend with whom they could be themselves.

"Hop in, Charlotte!" Raven jumped out and threw the bags into the trunk, throwing open a rear door. "You can have the backseat!"

"I call age privilege!" Charlotte replied and nimbly climbed forward into the front.

Erika smirked at Raven in the mirror and Charlotte felt her heart lift. Erika was treating Raven like a little sibling, not…well, she hadn't even really formed the thought. If Erika was a straight, maybe she would be attracted to Raven, having seen his male form. Or did that not count as something a straight would want? Instead, she seemed to have taken her cue from Charlotte, and Charlotte was most pleased.

"You've had a lot of practice with this," Charlotte smiled at Erika and stroked the dashboard. It was a very new car.

"Of course. I never quite managed a driver's licence, but otherwise I'm very good with cars. Metal locks, metal ignition…"

 

Charlotte dropped the directions to the facility into Erika's mind. "If you can get us from the airport to I-495, Agent Duncan's directions should apply from there."

"I understand." Erika moved the car confidently through traffic, and Charlotte was not entirely sure whether or not she was using her powers. She caught Charlotte's look, though, and laughed. "I am using my powers, I suppose, to help keep track of vehicles I can't see. That awareness doesn't ever go away."

"You seem more confident with small things, but you move them with incredible accuracy." Charlotte glanced at Erika's oddly shaped but perfectly painted fingernails. Even her index finger, which had barely any nail at all, was glossy and perfect enough to pass at a casual glance, as she had painted neatly over the scar tissue around the nail bed.

"It's easier to practise with a coin or a paperclip than with a car or an anchor-chain. People tend to notice that kind of thing." Erika's thin lips tightened, and Charlotte caught a flicker of an image, the submarine leaping from her grasp and disappearing into the darkness.

Raven leaned forward to put her face between the seats and join the conversation. "But not if Charlotte doesn't let them notice. That's how I got better at controlling my changes - Charlotte was my back-up."

"Obviously, I could use the training." Erika's tone killed the conversation for a few moments, but that was never much of a deterrent to Charlotte.

"When we get there, it will be easy for me to find where the files are. I'll take care of watching eyes, and Erika, I presume you can take care of any physical locks."

"Yes, and closed-circuit cameras, if they have them."

Charlotte nodded. She hadn't thought of that, though she'd seen one in a bank, once.

"I can shift into Agent Duncan," Raven volunteered. "She was the only woman in the room, so I was interested in her and took a good look."

"Do you copy their voices as well?" Erika asked, glancing at Raven in the rear view mirror.

"As long as I've heard them speak, yes. The more I've heard them the easier it is, so Agent Duncan's voice probably isn't going to be perfect. I can always pretend to have a cold, though."

Charlotte reached behind her and patted Raven's hand. "But I'm sure we won't need to talk to anyone."

"It's good to have an emergency plan," Erika argued. "What if you get knocked out?"

"By whom?" Charlotte couldn't think of a way for people to get close enough to do that.

Erika made an exasperated gesture with both hands. She wasn't touching the steering wheel but the car kept its steady course. "I don't know - imagine you fall over and hit your head! Or there's a sniper at a distance! Unless you can predict the future, you should have a back-up plan."

"Did you have one last night?"

Erika snapped her mouth shut again. The rest of the drive was silent.

Duncan's facility was a collection of low buildings out in the Virginia countryside. There was a wire fence, and a white geodesic dome on one of the lawns. It look more like a small college than a research facility, except for the floodlights and the armed guards at the gate. Most of the lights had been left on, giving a perfect view into the buildings, which were largely empty offices.

Erika had hidden the car over a slight hill behind some trees, and the three of them were looking down on the complex from a lightly wooded area nearby. Charlotte was really regretting her choice of footwear now, but she hadn't known they'd be walking around on grass. All her shoes and boots had heels, though she had pairs that would have been more comfortable than these, which kept sinking into the grass.

Erika stretched her hands out towards the buildings. "There's no cameras outside. That dome seems to be a radio antenna of some kind, but it's not active right now. There's a great deal more electricity flowing into the south-west corner of the main building than anywhere else."

"If they're doing research, that could be a lab. They'll need high-quality and constant refrigeration at the very least. That gives me a starting point, thank you."

Charlotte let her mind wander gently across the facility and towards the lab. There were twenty-six people still here in the late evening, either working or on guard duty. Agent Duncan was in her office in the main building, and Charlotte quickly flicked through her thoughts to get the layout of the facility correct, orienting herself by what was indeed a lab. Most people's minds didn't provide nice clear floor plans, but Agent Duncan, as with many people who dealt with large quantities of information, had a very orderly mind that was pleasant to wander through. It was a familiar feeling, after being in Oxford for so long, to see the strata of facts and suppositions, connected with flashes of insight and intuition, filed for further investigation. The facility was not so much concerned with mutants as with anything the CIA classified as "Paranormal", including some perfectly legitimate scientific investigations and engineering research projects that happened to fall outside the specific jurisdictions of other departments. There was pseudo-science, too, attempts to contact the dead and predict the future, and Charlotte saw no way that such abilities could exist, even with her knowledge of the existence of mutants. Frieda Duncan had no more knowledge than anyone else about mutants - she simply a savvy former OSS agent who was building her personal fiefdom out of the scraps that no-one else had considered.

"She's had copies of the files on Doctor Shaw and her people sent over," Charlotte said, her fingers firmly pressed to her temple. "They're in her personal filing cabinet in her office. I've given her a slight headache to encourage her to head home."

"Impressive." Erika looked at Charlotte with admiration and Charlotte had to restrain herself from grinning - this was meant to be a serious mission. Flirting and giggling wasn't going to win her any points with someone who had spent their adult years hunting down Nazis.

"She's finishing the draft of a letter - there - and now she's leaving."

"Can you find a gap in the guards' patrols? I presume that will be easier than blocking out their awareness of us."

Charlotte wanted to boast that either would be a doddle, but Erika had reacted so badly to being questioned about her plans before that it seemed wiser to comply. "They don't actually go to Agent Duncan's office - once we're in the office area, we'll be fine as long as we stay down and avoid being seen through the windows."

"All those lights do provide a good view," Raven added. He'd changed into Capri pants and a shirt, both black, and a pair of white sandshoes that Charlotte had once owned. Charlotte didn't really know what appropriate spy wear would be, but Erika's neat black dress - above the knee, with a slit at the back so she could run - and Raven's pants were a good idea. She'd have to get some when they made it to New York, since she doubted that their espionage adventures were going to end today. Feeling very daring, she took off her shoes and put one into each thigh pocket of her shirt dress.

The wire fence peeled away with a wave of Erika's hand and they walked briskly and calmly down the grassy hill to the compound. Charlotte and Raven were calm, at any rate, confident in Charlotte's telepathy which had got them into all kinds of prohibited places over the years. Erika was far twitchier, but she stayed close and alert. Charlotte had slowed down the guards a little to avoid running into them, and Erika opened the locked door into the building with ease. She took a moment to check for silent alarms or indoor cameras - Charlotte really didn't want to know what kind of places Erika had previously broken into - but apparently the security here was based on the two things that they could easily defeat: personnel and locks.

In the open plan part of the office, Charlotte noticed a hulking machine near a secretary's desk. *That's a Xerox - we don't even have to steal the files. We can copy them.*

*You know how to work one?* Erika returned, enunciating her thoughts carefully.

*Of course - since the Medical Sciences Department got one last year, it was my job to copy everything.*

*Don't they have secretaries for that?* Erika asked.

Raven smirked. *No, just grad students. And only two of them were female.*

*Well, at least it got me out of tea-making duty.* Charlotte was surprised to find how cranky she was about that, still.

*I presume the CIA treated you in the same way?* Erika inquired, carefully unlocking Agent Duncan's office.

*They were less polite about it, which I find rather offensive as they were the ones who invited me here in the first place. MacTaggert apologised, at least.*

The door swung open. *You shouldn't trust him. He's got his own agenda, and it's not ours.*

Charlotte frowned in confusion. *What's our agenda? Women's agenda?*

*No, mutants.*

Raven laughed, quietly. *Erika, you only know two other mutants.*

*And you have proven more trustworthy and more helpful that any human I have ever met.*

Charlotte was going to laugh, but Erika's face was deadly serious, and Charlotte reminded herself of everything Erika had gone through. It was no wonder that she hadn't found people to trust. Instead, she merely replied, *Thank you.*

The lights were on in Agent Duncan's office, but the Venetian blinds were closed, leaving Erika free to pop open the filing cabinet that Charlotte specified. They each grabbed a folder of papers and started reading for anything relevant.

"I've got something!" Raven was first to call a halt to the search. "Starting several years ago, Doctor Shaw was often seen in the company of a blond teenage boy. He turned out to be one Emory Frost - yes, those Frosts, Charlotte - whose family were friends with Shaw. Emory had been expelled from two schools due to conduct difficulties and Doctor Shaw offered to take Emory on as an assistant."

"Conduct difficulties?" Erika knew the words, but not the code.

Charlotte helped. "Either he beats up boys from families richer than his own, or he's a queer. I suppose if he's the telepath, he could have upset someone important…"

Raven put a photograph on the desk. Emory was wearing kohl around his eyes. "Well, he's certainly happy to give the impression of being a queer. His family doesn't seem to know or care what Doctor Shaw is doing with him, as long as nobody knows about it. Sounds familiar, doesn't it?"

"Does it?" Erika was even more confused.

"Our family was the same: lots of money, lots of problems that had to be hushed up. Drinking, affairs, a family name to keep up, that kind of thing. Only a hundred miles away from Boston." Charlotte grinned, suddenly. "Emory and I might well share an ancestor, sometime in the last few hundred years! Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could track down the prevalence of telepathy in those bloodlines?"

"Hey, maybe there's more blue people out there!" Raven was delighted, but Erika turned her back on them to continue reading her files. Her shoulders were tense, but Charlotte didn't dare interrupt her. It was quite uncomfortable being around someone who was so very touchy and gave so little warning as to her moods. With most people, Charlotte could feel them changing direction, but Erika switched from engaged to angry faster than Charlotte could follow - each emotion strong but discrete - and sometimes with no feeling attached to her thoughts at all. Right now, she had pushed a mix of anger and terror aside - the memory of someone talking about bloodlines with great enthusiasm - to focus entirely on the feel of a coin she kept in her bra, near her heart. It didn't so much calm her as make the rage energising rather than draining.

"Here. This file is about Shaw's finances. We need to copy this." Erika handed the file - a list of bank accounts, company names and dates - to Charlotte. Raven added the pages on Emory Frost to the pile and Charlotte hurried out to the main office, trying to concentrate on getting the job done and getting them out of here.

Instead, she opened the door and got a horrible fright as she realised someone was crouching above the lintel. Charlotte froze the person telepathically before she made a sound, and the woman thudded from her hiding place onto the ground.

Erika was there in a second, paperclips and pushpins hovering around her, pinning the limp body of the woman to the floor. She looked up at Charlotte. "Can she hear us?"

Charlotte held the files close to her chest. "No, it's as if time has stopped for her. She definitely saw me and heard you and Raven, but I can erase that."

"Wait," Erika pointed and Charlotte followed her gaze. The young woman - she couldn't be older than 21 - was dressed like a preppy high schooler under her lab coat, in a fawn blouse with an ugly plaid skirt. Her glasses had fallen off when she toppled from the door. The most remarkable thing about her, though, was her feet. She was barefoot, her socks and large, ugly saddle shoes neatly placed to the side of the door, and her feet resembled large hands, right down to the thumb. Each foot was the size of both of Erika's put together.

"She's another mutant!" Charlotte clapped her hands together and quickly rifled through her sleeping mind. "Harriet McCoy, doctorate in electrical engineering and Masters in biochemistry from MIT, recruited by Agent Duncan to work on various projects including, oh dear, a mutant detecting machine."

"Is it working?"

"No - Harriet has theorised the existence of telepathy and an ability she calls 'mechanical-telepathic interfacing'. The machine, Cerebro, would need either of these to work."

"Agent Duncan wanted to bring you here, and you didn't pick why." Erika's mouth was a thin line again.

Raven, leaning against the doorframe, interrupted. "Maybe Agent Duncan has some ideas about telepathic shielding. It's not hard to do, unless Charlotte's actively searching for something. Don't get mad at Charlotte - it was a complicated situation. Hey, look at the size of those shoes! And her feet! That's amazing!"

"We can't leave her," Erika said, though Raven's words had at least stopped her glaring at Charlotte. "She knows too much about mutants, and she can invent the same machine again. They'll find a telepath eventually."

"No, wait! Don't kill her!" Charlotte went to shove Erika away, but Erika didn't budge.

"I'm not going to kill her, you idiot." Her voice was fond, rather than cruel, and Charlotte slowly relaxed again. "She's a mutant. She should come with us. Imagine if we can use her machine to find Shaw's people!"

Raven joined them crouching by the unconscious woman. "What if she doesn't want to come along? Will you make her?"

"Yes," Erika replied, at the same time as Charlotte said, "No, of course not."

"Oh, good to see we've got a plan, then." Raven rolled his eyes.

"You can't leave her here, not if Duncan knows about mutants and wants to get you into that machine," Erika hissed. "It's not safe. And Harriet McCoy deserves to know who she is. That she's not alone."

Charlotte looked across Harriet's prone body at Erika, caught in the determination that shone through her. Erika truly believed what she was saying, and Charlotte couldn't help but luxuriate in that sensation of being absolutely sure of something. Feeling everyone's perspectives, everyone's tiny justifications and angry regrets, often left Charlotte feeling adrift and careless. She could be sure only of her science and mathematics, but those were not what filled her days: other people's minds did, and finding such determination and purpose turned on her was quite stunning.

"Erika. I won't make her come with us, but if she doesn't, I promise I will alter her memories so that her machine won't work with an actual telepath."

"You understand it well enough to do that?"

"Harriet does, so, at least temporarily, I do as well. I'm going to wake her up now."

Erika sat back on her heels, and Charlotte put her hand to Harriet's temple, bringing her to consciousness slowly and calmly.

"Hello, Harriet. I'm Doctor Charlotte Xavier, and I'm a mutant like you."

Harriet blinked several times and felt around for her glasses, which Charlotte put into her hand. "Uh, hello. Doctor Harriet McCoy. I read your paper on rapid adaption in frogs, the one you co-wrote in last March's _Nature_?"

"Thank you! Actually, I wrote the whole thing, but my department head was determined to put his name on it."

"Yes, I looked at his work and he hadn't had an innovative idea in years!" Harriet laughed nervously, then looked around and remembered where she was and what was happening. "Doctor Xavier, why are you breaking into my boss's office?"

"Harriet - may I call you Harriet? If you've read my work, you know about my theory on mutation in human beings. In fact, I have a very personal stake in that theory, because I myself am a mutant." *I can speak to you in your mind. And please, call me Charlotte.*

"Oh! That's very startling. I thought - "

"You thought you were the only one," Erika interrupted. "So did I. But your boss mustn't think so, if she let you put all that time and money into building a machine to find others of our kind."

Harriet ducked her head. "I didn't think of it that way. Agent Duncan recruited me out of MIT and she's been very kind. She's let me work on all kinds of things. That was my personal project but it turns out it won't work without -" She stared at Charlotte and her face lit up with delight. "You're a telepath."

*Yes, I am.* Charlotte shared the conversation with Raven and Erika, too. *If you and your machine come with us, we should be able to find even more mutants. There's a woman named Doctor Shaw who has recruited at least three more of us. She's very dangerous, and we have reason to believe she may be hurting them in order to shape their powers in the way she wants.*

"All I can do is balance and hang off things," Harriet said, gesturing at her hand-like feet. "Nothing amazing. I don't think she'd want me."

"All I could do was move small pieces of metal. Shaw was interested enough in that," Erika snapped.

Harriet cowered away from her, and Raven waved, distracting Harriet from Erika's snarl. "I'd love to be able to hang off things! Maybe I can copy your feet one day? If you don't mind?" His skin rippled blue and he changed into Agent Duncan, then back again.

"That's amazing! I can't just leave my job and run off with you, though. I mean, I'll share the plans for Cerebro - that's what I called my machine - of course, but I can't."

"Of course you can!" Charlotte played her trump card. "Agent Duncan has strong suspicions about the existence of telepaths. If you want to return to the CIA, I'll remove memories the CIA might use against us, and you can tell her you were brainwashed. It won't be your fault."

Harriet smiled shyly, but with great excitement, as if the prospect of being brainwashed was the most thrilling thing she'd ever heard. "Okay. I'll come with you. But I won't do anything that's harmful to the CIA. Agent Duncan's been good to me."

"Done!" Charlotte clapped her on the shoulder, and Erika helped her to her feet. Harriet folded the thumbs on her feet underneath her arches - which mean she was walking on them in order to look normal, poor thing, and went to put her socks and shoes on, but Erika stopped her.

"You don't need to hurt yourself trying to look normal. Wear those ugly shoes around other people if you wish - we all dress to fit in - but you don't have to wear them around us."

Harriet hesitated, then stuffed her socks into her shoes and carried them instead of putting them on. "Right, then. I suppose I should tell you where all the plans are, then, since we won't be able to take Cerebro with us."

Erika grinned, and Harriet stepped back a little. "Oh, I think we should at least be able to carry your machine."

\---

Raven couldn't believe it had all been so easy. Erika had driven away in their stolen car and swapped it for a light truck. They'd simply parked it by the fence, near the big white golf ball that housed Cerebro, and Harriet had directed Erika in taking the machine to pieces. There were only a few parts that were critical - the human interface contained in a half-finished helmet, two computers about as tall as Raven but four times as heavy, a typewriter welded into yet another computer - but the way the computers and helmet were connected to each other and to the radio array was apparently very complex. Raven had to open panels in the floor and disconnect plugs and power in the specific order called out by Harriet; Erika was sweating heavily as she carefully floated each section down onto the truck bed. Charlotte was set on watch, and to distract the guards in the area, but unfortunately this was too little work to keep her occupied, so she passed her time by forming a mutual admiration society with Harriet.

"You graduated at sixteen! Remarkable!"

"Well, your work is revolutionary, Doctor Xavier, and I think as the electron microscope continues to develop, your field is going to explode."

"Call me Charlotte, please, Doctor Xavier sounds like my father."

"If you keep going I'm going to barf!" Raven called out.

"Oh, I'm sorry!" Harriet stumbled over her words. "What do you study? And Erika?"

"Fashion," Raven snapped.

"Knives," Erika added, unhelpfully.

Charlotte sighed. "Calm down, everyone. We all bring our own skills to the table. It's been a long day in too many airports."

"At least we don't have to get on a plane again." Raven offered an olive branch.

Erika rolled up a length of cable without touching it. "Can any of you drive a truck?"

"No," Charlotte smiled up at her. "But I can buy you coffee and keep you entertained until we make it to New York."

"Can you show me how to drive it?" Raven had to admit he was fascinated by Erika's competence, even if Harriet and Charlotte might value their educations over that. He'd spent long enough in Oxford to realise that if you missed one genius, another one would come along any moment, but he hadn't met anyone like Erika before.

"Of course. Harriet is about to throw herself over her computers to protect them from you, so perhaps when we get to New York?"

"Thank you. That would be great."

Harriet retrieved a suitcase of her belongings from her quarters near her lab and, once the equipment was strapped down to Erika's satisfaction, they all piled into the cab of the truck. It wasn't exactly roomy, but Raven made herself skinnier, and they all squashed in with enough room to breathe. Raven had meant to sit by Erika to start to learn how to drive the truck, but Charlotte somehow ended up there, with Harriet next to her, and Raven was against the far door.

*Are you making a move on Erika?* he projected in Charlotte's direction.

Charlotte sent an image of herself neatly seated with her knees firmly together. *Raven, I love you, but you've got sex on the brain.*

*I've got…? I'll remind you of that next time I catch you staring into Erika's eyes across an unconscious body.*

*I'm sure you will, my dear.*

Erika put the truck into gear and they lumbered over the grass, turning smoothly onto a bigger road and then onto I-495, heading north.

"Do any of you know the way to New York, or do we need to get a map?" Erika asked.

Raven reached for the glove box, but Harriet's face lit up at being able to help. "Yes, it's an easy drive. I drove myself down from Massachusetts a few months ago because I had to bring all my experiments with me."

"You built Cerebro in a few months?" Raven was astounded, considering how complicated all the equipment had looked.

"Well, I had the theory already worked out, and a basic mutant/non-mutant test."

Erika's hands clenched on the steering wheel. "You can tell that?"

"Uh, maybe? I've only really had one test subject, so I can't really tell if it's an actual difference between mutants and non-mutants, or simply between me and other people I scanned."

Charlotte looked thoughtful. "I don't see why it wouldn't be possible, at least with some kinds of mutants. I suppose that's why you need a telepath, to differentiate when a computer program can't."

"You'd think a machine would be more accurate and reliable, but I think I need the filtering capacity of a human brain," Harriet said, mournfully.

"Oh, I don't think it's only that!" Charlotte was beaming at Harriet, who blushed. "There's so much going on in a human brain that we don't have the technology to detect yet - I'm desperate to find that other telepath and discover if we see things the same way."

Charlotte and Harriet's conversation rapidly devolved into the kind of chat that Raven had learned to tune out, and he looked across them to see that Erika's knuckles were still white.

"Are you okay, Erika?"

She made a conscious effort to release her grip. "Of course. It's what, six or seven hours to New York? We should get some coffee and food soon."

"Definitely! There'll be plenty of roadside places open, at least until midnight." Raven kept an eye on her. "Did you know someone who could tell mutants apart from non-mutants?"

"Shaw said she could do a lot of things. Who knows what was true?"

"Yeah, I'm glad I ended up with Charlotte instead of someone like that. Even if she can't manage to talk in a way that normal people can understand."

Erika almost smiled at that. "Yes, I am glad, also."


	3. Cerebro

They were all bleary-eyed when they arrived at the enormous house in Westchester. Even so, Erika could see Charlotte and Raven smiling in delight, then immediately yawning, almost in unison, as the truck stopped. Erika couldn't simply lie down and sleep in a strange place, not without at least a quick survey. And the astonishing size of the house and grounds meant that feeling at ease here would not come easily.

Frustratingly, much of the house was stone and massive beams of wood, rather than the steel frames of modern constructions. The iron nails of the floorboards and beams were good markers, at least. The more recently renovated areas, especially underground, and the big greenhouses, were immediately clear to her senses. There was another odd shape off in the distance, too, but she couldn't quite resolve it into an identifiable structure.

"A tour, perhaps?" Charlotte asked, taking Erika's arm. "Raven, will you find Harriet a room?"

"I'll head up to the third floor. They will have got that ready, if nothing else." Raven waved hello to the house and took Harriet and her suitcase inside, along with his and Charlotte's travel bags.

At Erika's quizzical look, Charlotte shrugged. "The house has a permanent staff of four, who bring family members in to help out when someone actually shows up here. We sent a telegram ahead from Oxford to say our things would be arriving and to open up the house."

Erika looked around at the massive building in the pale morning light. "What a terrible hardship it must have been, growing up here."

Charlotte shrugged, an odd expression on her face. "I had Raven. And the size of the house was very helpful for a developing telepath - there were so many places I could go to get away from the other minds. My range was much smaller, then." She dropped a complete image of the house's interior into Erika's head. *There, that should help you and Harriet find your way around.*

They walked up the crunchy gravel drive to the front doors and inside. The wood panels and high ceilings rather reminded Erika of a stately British home she'd broken into to recover a list of names of former Nazi sympathisers in Britain. The lead hadn't panned out, but at least she'd stolen a good meal and several small but valuable antiques.

"No Nazis sheltered here, I promise you. When the war started, my father brought us back from London to volunteer his services as a scientist. He was rather disappointed when the USA didn't immediately join the war effort, but he certainly got to contribute in the end."

"What kind of scientist was he?"

"A nuclear physicist."

Erika laughed at the incongruity: one man helped make both soft, kind Charlotte and the bombs that destroyed two cities. "You never felt the urge to follow in his footsteps and make bombs yourself?"

"No, not in the slightest! Quite apart from the fact that they treated their female colleagues abominably, I won't be the cause of someone's death, even indirectly."

"How noble of you." Erika felt the black mood descend on her again. She tried to tell herself that Charlotte was an ally, that it was good that Charlotte had never had to kill, but all she could feel was a violent hatred for everything around her. She wanted to tear it all down, burn the house to the ground and see Charlotte weep over the ashes, and at the same time never wanted to see Charlotte cry at all.

*Erika. The candelabra are groaning. Be calm.*

Erika unclenched her fists as best she could, and let her senses range outwards, trying to relocate herself spatially herself, to know that she was here and nowhere else. Again, she felt that odd, large shape off to the rear of the house.

*That's a satellite dish.*

Suddenly the shape became clear. It was, indeed, an enormous satellite receiver. "You own a satellite dish?"

"Don't sound so incredulous! No, I don't own a satellite dish. It's on land that my father leased to the Weather Bureau in the 1930s. They sneakily installed the dish a few years ago by making sure Raven and I received notification too late to protest." Charlotte took Erika's arm again and started up the stairs. "Come on. You'll be able to see it from the bedrooms on the third floor."

Erika shook her head. "I can't believe you have a satellite dish."

"It's going to be awfully convenient once we get Cerebro set up properly, isn't it? We should probably start with the television antenna - I'd rather not accidentally fry my brains."

She showed Erika to a bedroom and indeed, the satellite dish was visible from the window. Erika had been expecting something akin to the bedrooms in the English home, densely furnished with four poster beds and washstands, decorated with giant tapestries and paintings on the ceilings. Instead, apart from the wood panelling and expensive textured wallpaper, it resembled a hotel room, with a plain double bed, a nightstand and a desk. If it wasn't for the satellite dish outside and the knowledge that this was part of Charlotte's home, it would have been quite comfortable. Erika put her briefcase on the desk.

"Yes, it does feel rather like a hotel at times. Still, it will be the perfect base of operations and - if we can get Cerebro working properly - a great place to house more mutants."

"If you don't fry your brains, as you say."

"I've willed the place to Raven. I'm sure he'll let you stay."

Charlotte was hovering in the doorway, uncertain. Erika found her so hard to read, sometimes - she wasn't as direct as an American, nor as reticent as the few upper-class English women that Erika had met - and it was unnerving, knowing that she, along with everyone else, was an open book to Charlotte.

"Get some rest," Charlotte said, kindly. "I'll see you in a few hours."

"These staff of yours won't be worried by two guests and a truck full of stolen equipment?"

Charlotte laughed. "They've seen stranger things. But no, I'll call them and ask them not to come over today. We need some peace and quiet." She hovered a moment longer, then backed out the door, closing it softly behind her.

Erika slumped down on the bed, suddenly exhausted. She'd had longer days - much longer - but all the revelations of the past 36 hours were be catching up with her. She stripped off and got under the covers, yawning. It had been a very long time since she was in a house filled with her own kind. For the first time ever, that was not a threatening thing. For the first time ever, that kind was mutants.

She awoke later in the morning, abruptly as she always did, quickly showered in the adjoining bathroom and got dressed in her sole change of underwear and the same dress. She left off the stockings and cardigan, though: it was unfair to ask Raven and Harriet to not hide themselves and then hide the marks of her own life. It felt quite liberating to stretch out her limbs and see the bare, scarred skin, exposed for no purpose other than that she wanted to. She'd sometimes left her tattooed arm bare to intimidate those who would be alarmed by the evidence of their handiwork, before she killed them, but she had never been casual about it. Erika slipped her feet into her flat court shoes - she was lucky to be tall enough that wearing them appeared to be a fashion statement rather than a readiness to run - and headed downstairs. The mental map Charlotte had given her led her to the kitchen, past rooms for which her mind supplied names - the library, the parlour, Mother's room - although the doors were closed.

"Good morning!" Raven chirped. He was eating a bowl of cornflake, wearing his pretty blonde form, seated at what Charlotte's map called "the breakfast table" in the kitchen itself. There was a massive dining room beyond that, tables and chairs covered in swathes of white cloth.

"Good morning, Raven. Is there coffee?"

"God, I hope so. Charlotte and Harriet aren't up yet, but Charlotte will make the tea anyway. She takes it just so, and I'm not British enough to get it right or something."

Erika opened the pantry door and realised it was an entire room, about half-stocked with food. "How many people lived here?" She took a moment to orient herself and quickly found an unopened packet of ground coffee, right next to some filter papers.

"Since Mother and our step-father died, and our step-sister Kaye moved out? Only the two of us, and then we went to England. Yeah, I know, the house is too big for two people."

"It's too big for twenty people." Erika located the familiar shape of an electroplated steel coffee percolator in one of the cupboards and retrieved it. It was a little dusty, but nothing that a quick rinse wouldn't fix. A kettle sat on the stove and Erika went about making the coffee.

Raven crunched away at his breakfast. "Maybe we'll find twenty-one mutants, then! Or two hundred! You never know."

"Do you think there's that many?"

"I don't know. Harriet was trying to explain how her machine works, and it went right over my head, but if she can find mutants using a telepath, maybe Charlotte has been attracting us all along? Maybe there's not very many, but we collect in proximity to telepaths?"

Erika frowned. She hoped that wasn't true, because then Shaw's telepath would be collecting mutants. "Even so, there'd be hundreds of people who've never met a telepath. I've had my abilities since I was a child - stronger since I was a teenager - and I've been all over Europe without meeting another mutant."

"As far as you knew."

Erika could give him that. "Yes, as far as I knew. Did Charlotte ever seriously look for other mutants before?"

"When we were little we'd lie in bed and she'd reach out. If it was a still night, and she was really relaxed, she could reach about twelve miles. No mutants."

"That's hardly a diverse population. Did she ever try in Oxford?"

"I don't think so - and not in New York, either. It's so busy there that Charlotte has to really concentrate so that she can think her own thoughts and not wander out into the road. You saw how she was on the plane." Raven brought his bowl over to the sink to wash it. "I guess we'll find out soon enough how many mutants there really are."

"In the meantime, coffee." Erika poured two cups, then another two as she felt the metal of Charlotte and Harriet's watches and shoes approaching.

"Good morning everyone!" Charlotte beamed. "And there's coffee! Thank you, Erika."

"Uh, good morning," Harriet said. She was wearing similar clothes to yesterday - blouse and plaid skirt in marginally different colours, and she had her socks and shoes on. Erika raised an eyebrow but said nothing. Raven was not so quiet.

"Harriet, doesn't it hurt to wear those shoes? You don't have to wear them here."

"She should dress however she feels comfortable," Charlotte waved a hand and slurped down a mouthful of coffee. "This is really quite excellent, Erika. But, speaking of clothes, you should have a look through the wardrobes on the second and third floors and see if you can't find something to fit you. Raven has been all kinds of sizes, as you might expect, and our step-sister Kaye is tall - some of her old things might fit."

"Thank you. I was planning to go into town, perhaps, but a change of clothes would be very welcome in the meantime." Erika had worn other people's old clothes often enough in her life that she didn't do so now unless she had no choice.

"Is Kaye a step-sister or a half-sister?" Harriet asked, nearly spilling her coffee in excitement. "And is she a mutant, too?"

"Not a blood relation and no, not a mutant to our knowledge." Charlotte made her way to the pantry. "Raven, could I prevail upon you to make something more substantial than coffee and cereal? After all that telepathy yesterday, I'm starving."

"Well, it will be much nicer than cooking on that horrible little stove in Oxford," Raven replied amiably, and headed for the fridge. "Take a seat, all of you, and I'll see what I can manage."

Erika obeyed, and sat down at the table with her coffee in hand. She knew that she should be getting on with things right now, assembling Cerebro, finding Shaw's people and thus finding Shaw. Even so, she was weirdly content simply to be around other mutants, watching Raven make his arms longer to reach the frying pan, seeing the intent look that meant Charlotte and Harriet were deep in telepathic conversation. She reached for the anger of early this morning, at Charlotte's riches and Charlotte's absence from her life until now, but it was gone. The constant acid burn of her rage at Shaw and the feel of the coin against her breast had not diminished. She was not weakened by being here, by finding comrades. That thought was enough to let her relax a little, to enjoy the sunlit kitchen, the smell of food and the company of, yes, friends.

After their very late breakfast, they began to assemble Cerebro. Erika, who'd changed into a poorly-fitted pair of cigarette pants, a loose shirt and sandshoes from Kaye's wardrobe, traced the most modern of the electrical wiring from the kitchen around the east side of the house. The heavier wiring also ran to a large room with burned walls and damaged fittings, the windows boarded. Erika was about to ask what had happened, but both Charlotte and Raven were studiously ignoring that room, so she didn't. The other room on that side of the house was a partly renovated ballroom, half the floor polished and half only sanded. The ballroom contained nothing but an out-of-tune upright piano and a gigantic chandelier. Tempted, Erika flicked at the metal fixtures of the crystals to make it jingle and chime, and Charlotte laughed in delight.

Erika grinned at her, but turned her attention to Harriet. "It's here or the kitchen."

"Not the kitchen," Charlotte added. "I'm going to try to cook us all dinner tonight."

"You're sure we shouldn't call in some of the staff?" Raven asked, but Charlotte shook her head.

"The gardeners will be in tomorrow and I'll have to encourage them not to look in here. I don't need people poking around the house today. Besides, I'm feeling like a bad hostess."

"It's not as if Mother ever cooked anything," Raven muttered, and they shared a fond glance.

Harriet had her head out the window. "The television antenna is on the chimney on this side of the house, so here will be perfect!"

They unloaded the truck, Erika carefully levitating the heaviest equipment into the goods elevator. Harriet took off her shoes and displayed strength beyond what her scrawny frame should allow by lugging boxes of magnetic tape and the smallest of the computers; Charlotte and Raven followed with the most delicate pieces and the extra wiring that Harriet had insisted they bring. She was right to do so - some wires and connections had been damaged by the trip to New York.

"Can you find where the breakages are?" Harriet asked Erika. "Normally, this kind of set-up would take days to test, but if you can find the problems with your power…"

Erika hadn't thought of using her power that way, but she had certainly snapped or connected electrical wiring before, as she needed it, and Harriet's suggestion made sense. "This is wonderful - I'm learning more about my abilities so fast."

Charlotte, perched on the piano stool, nodded. "As am I. Your minds really do feel slightly different to me than other minds, now that Harriet has explained her theories to me. I hope Cerebro will expand that."

"So, what are we going to do with all these mutants once we find them?" Raven asked, winding magnetic tape into the computer as Harriet had shown him. "I mean, I think it's great that we're finding them and telling them there's more of us out here, but then what? Some of them are going to have jobs and families, and not be in secret CIA bases where brainwashing works as an excuse."

"We should prioritise." Erika pressed her fingers on the outside of an insulated wire and mended the break in the copper inside.

"What kind of priorities? I want to find Shaw's people, but I don't know where they are or what kind of range this thing will have. Obviously, the first people we pick up are going to be the closest, so there's one criterion." Charlotte frowned. "And about Doctor Shaw's people: they've obviously been trained to fight, and we haven't."

"I have," said Erika.

"Apart from you, of course. Harriet is here to build, and Raven and I have powers that lend themselves to defence. We shouldn't gather people here who are only going to be frightened."

Erika put down the wiring. "I think that most of them are already going to be frightened. By who they are and the way others treat them, if others know."

Both Raven and Harriet nodded at this, even as Charlotte looked argumentative.

Erika pressed on. "Also, I am here because you offered to help me find Shaw. We need people who will be willing to do that, to rescue the mutants Shaw has, and it's entirely possible that we're going to have to fight them. Shaw's methods are very persuasive: she has a way of making you believe that she is your only friend, your protector."

"Yes, I see." Charlotte's voice was soft and sympathetic, and Erika felt that anger burn through her again.

"No, you don't see. If Shaw had really been protecting me, she wouldn't have killed my mother to make me perform tricks. If she was really protecting Emory Frost, she'd force them to let him finish his education, not parade him around Miami and make him be her bodyguard. But she will have told him that whatever she makes him do, whatever she does to him, it's better than what others had planned for him.

"And she's right, in a very basic way - I'd be dead with my parents, Emory would probably be in a mental institution with all the other queers. But we are not regular people. We don't have to follow human rules and prejudices. We don't have to accept the limitations they put on us. All Shaw does is tell you that those limitations are real, and she is the only one who can save you from them."

She turned on her heel and stalked out, unable to tolerate the expression on Charlotte and Harriet's faces any longer. Raven, at least, didn't stare. Erika took the staircase down to the ground floor and walked out the front door, tempted to get in the truck and drive away, to never talk to anyone again. It had all been so much easier by herself, easier, and yet she had failed so badly. Shaw had been right in her grasp and she'd given up. She should have died rather than let her escape. Instead, she'd been distracted: how Shaw must be laughing now!

With that, all the energy seeped out of Erika, and she walked slowly over to the plush green grass and sat under a tree. There was a light breeze and the leaves rustled gently, dappling Erika with sunlight, as if everything was good and the dark places of the earth could not co-exist with such a serene, lovely vista.

"I'm sorry, Erika." Charlotte sat down beside her, her dainty floral skirt spreading out around her.

Erika waved a hand at her, though she couldn't find any words in any language to reply.

Charlotte moved a little closer. "You're right. I did promise to help you, and I will. This idea I have, about all mutants working together, that's in the long term. Imagine if we could bring children here, give them somewhere safe to grow up and learn about their powers. I think it's the best defence against predators like Doctor Shaw. We should help these children first, so that there's nothing Doctor Shaw can offer them."

Erika nodded, slowly, but still didn't reply.

"Even better would be if we can stop her entirely. I was reading the papers we copied from Agent Duncan's office, and Doctor Shaw is definitely playing some larger game. She's got military contacts on both sides, and she's spent a lot of money on them."

"Maybe she'll make an army," Erika said, her voice weary. "Or put her own people in power. Can you imagine placing one of you in the Kremlin? What you could do? It makes sense for her to be cultivating Soviet and American forces alike: if she made a wrong move on one side, with no-one ready to counter it, we could all end up dead in a hail of nuclear weapons."

"Yes, well, when I get to Heaven I'll be sure to tell my father what he wrought. You couldn't stop missiles?"

"It would depend on the size of the missile. I certainly couldn't stop an ICBM. So who are these people you want to find?"

"Friends. Shaw has allies, why shouldn't we? Raven's right, though. We need to select carefully. I thought that mutants who are already in trouble might be a good start. We can immediately and directly assist them, then they can make a choice whether to come with us or not. And if we start with the closest mutants, well, we're not far from one of the biggest cities in the world. Harriet and I combined our calculations and it's back of the envelope stuff, but we made a conservative estimate of one mutant per six million people. That's three in New York State alone. And there could be more, many more."

"How long does Harriet think it will take to assemble Cerebro?"

"With your help, by tomorrow night. Without you, at least a week."

"I'll go inside and help her, then." Erika nodded, and climbed to her feet.

Charlotte took her hands and held her still for a moment. "Erika. You're the most remarkable person I've ever met. I'm sorry that I keep blundering into things I don't know about and making you angry."

Erika shook her head, though she didn't know what she was denying, and, after a moment, pulled her hands free and went to find Harriet.

\---

It took Erika and Harriet until noon the next day to get Cerebro ready for Charlotte to test. While Charlotte was deeply fascinated with the machine, she had neither the engineering nor electrical knowledge to be any use at this stage. Instead, she and Raven put their teenage cooking courses to use - they might have completely forgotten the etiquette lessons, and all the marriageability they were supposed to confer, but the cooking basics had stuck with them and kept everybody well-fed. The staff had come in on the morning of the second day, and Charlotte had been busy, then, shoring up the defences against them seeing Raven turn blue, adding in details about Erika and Harriet while masking anything to do with their powers. The two gardeners, handyman, cook and maid might be able to break through it if something obvious occurred, but short of that, they would notice only that Miss Charlotte and Miss Raven had guests.

Harriet had been thrilled. "That's fascinating! Will it work on anyone? What do I look like to them?"

"Well, I'm not making them see a particular thing: it's more that most people would rather see something ordinary than something strange. So some of them might see you as a girl with big feet, some of them might assume you're wearing shoes and so on. It only really works in familiar environments with calm people, and it's much harder with people trained to observe - scientists, the CIA…"

"Gossip columnists," Raven added gloomily.

"You shouldn't have changed your hair at Mother's party!"

"I was bored! And I didn't know it would take hours to do my hair like that! Anyway, you convinced her it was an especially good wig."

Charlotte was glad that Harriet seemed to have largely got over her terror of Erika as they worked together. Erika might be uneducated, but she was highly intelligent, quickly grasping everything Harriet was doing and taking care of the miles of wiring with calm competence. Harriet, unfortunately, was one of those dreadfully didactic teachers whose lectures got longer and duller the more she knew on a topic, but at least she wasn't at all condescending. Charlotte doubted that Erika would have stood for that, not even in the cause of finding more mutants.

And now the moment of truth was here. Surrounded by trailing wires and humming electronic devices, Charlotte sat on one of the chairs from the dining room and tried to stay calm as Erika and Harriet made final checks.

Raven paced around the computers. "Are you sure this is safe?"

"I'm sure it's not going to electrocute Charlotte, thanks to Erika's help," Harriet replied cheerfully.

"You're welcome." Erika checked the readings on one of the panels. The needles trembled but they were all well in the green zones. "Harriet, I think we're ready."

"Okay then! I had the helmet on a swivel arm back in Virginia, but here Erika kindly made me a frame out of metal garden stakes."

"Which you attached to the piano, I see. You can't just put in on my head?"

"Oh, no, it's very heavy, and very delicate. If you faint and drop it, it's going to take a tremendous amount of work to reassemble."

"She's going to faint?" Raven looked ready to leap across the sea of cabling and carry Charlotte away.

"Probably not?" Harriet didn't sound troubled at all. Charlotte reached out to touch her mind, and indeed it was happily bubbling away with predictions and possibilities, but very little concern.

Erika crouched down beside Charlotte, holding her arm. "The machine itself isn't going to hurt you. I made sure of that." *If you're going to make yourself a lab rat, I'm going to protect you.*

"Thank you, Erika. But you think the amplification of my telepathy might cause problems?"

"Raven told me that when you try too hard, you pass out. So do I. I think it's self-protective, so we don't hurt ourselves badly." She lowered the helmet to Charlotte's head, adjusting it carefully so that every electrical ending touched Charlotte's skin. "Are you ready?"

Charlotte sat up straight. "Oh, and Harriet, you can stop thinking about shaving my head. It's not going to happen."

"Right, right of course. Ready?"

"Ready."

The helmet hummed lightly, as if she was resting her head on the speaker of a radio, but for a long moment nothing happened. Then Charlotte felt as if she had opened her eyes to find hundreds of people in the room. She was racing outwards in every direction, surrounded by shadowy figures, her mind expanding far beyond anything she'd been able to reach in her childhood attempts to find more people like them. It wasn't the same, though: it wasn't the full spectrum of telepathy at all, but looking through a filter that blocked out most of the colours in the world. She took a deep breath, and somewhere out there she could hear Raven's voice.

*I'm…fine…* she stammered out, and then she was racing outwards again, and there was a bright light - a mutant - and another. Without warning, she plummeted back into her body and felt her hands locked on the helmet, holding it in place despite it being switched off.

"You're out of focus," she said to no-one in particular, and felt Raven's warm hands on her face and someone holding fingers to her throat. The helmet lifted away from her, smoothly and irrevocably, and she might have made a strange choked sound as it went.

"Strong pulse," Erika's voice floated in and Charlotte had to blink a dozen times before the faces around her resolved themselves.

"Oh. God. That was amazing. I'm fine, totally fine, better than fine."

Harriet rushed to her side, clipboard at the ready. "We received six sets of co-ordinates, all within fifty-seven miles! That's far beyond our predictions! Could you read their minds in there? Was your telepathy normal?"

"No, no, not at all. I can't explain - we need to find those people. We can find out their situations and whether they would be better off with us." Charlotte got up with only a slight wobble, quickly caught by Raven.

"First, tea. Then we'll put the co-ordinates on a map. Then we'll talk about going to find people." Raven's voice reminded Charlotte of Matron at school - probably deliberately - and that wasn't a tone with which she could argue.

"Of course, of course. Thank you, Harriet, Erika, that was truly amazing." Raven helped her towards the stairs, but as they went Charlotte recovered remarkably quickly. She felt no more tired than the times she had given a few men in a pub a small push not to bother her and Raven.

Erika had discovered a large and detailed map of New York City and parts of the surrounding areas somewhere, and spread it out on the breakfast table as Raven made tea in the familiar old china teapot that had come over from England more than twenty years ago with Charlotte and her parents.

"One here in Brooklyn. Another in Brooklyn, not far from the first. One close to here."

Raven peered over Erika's shoulder. "That's Bedford Hills. It's a women's prison, where they send all the really bad ones."

"I suppose that mutant's out of the question then," Harriet said.

"Why would you think that?" Erika snapped, and Harriet cringed again. Charlotte sighed. They'd been getting along so well.

"For all we know, she might have ended up there because of her mutant power," Charlotte noted, in her best academic tone. "Or even be a guard."

Erika scowled mutinously, but said nothing more.

Raven put the mugs of tea on the table. "We should definitely check her out. Even if she's not there because of her power, she might have been thrown out of her family because of it, and got caught committing a crime trying to survive."

"I agree." Erika sipped her tea. "In any case, Charlotte will be able to read her mind as soon as we get close enough. Shall we head to Brooklyn tonight?"

"Erika, I'd love to. I think just the two of us should go, perhaps."

"What?" Raven put her mug down with a loud clunk. "Why?"

"Firstly, I think that showing up in force could scare the mutant away. Secondly, I don't think Harriet is ready for a recruiting mission, but I don't want to leave her by herself."

Charlotte glanced over at Harriet, expecting resistance, but Harriet was nodding fervently.

*Please, Raven, I don't want to take her, but I'm worried that, left alone, she'll electrocute herself or something awful.*

Weirdly, Raven gave Harriet a fond sort of look and stopped arguing. *Okay. I'll make her stop working and watch some TV or something. If Erika hasn't wrecked the reception by running Cerebro's connections up there, anyway.*

*Thanks, Raven.*

*No problem. Go buy Erika some new clothes, show her the sights and maybe you'll get lucky!*

Charlotte shook her head. *All my secret plans, undone by my loving sibling.*

*Yeah, because it was a state secret!*

They both laughed, making Harriet jump and Erika smile her small, close-mouthed smile, the one that said she was relaxed and calm.

Erika was indeed happy to buy some new clothes - though she refused Charlotte's offer to buy them for her - and even happier to be driving the whale-sized, bright red convertible that Charlotte's step-father had given her for her sixteenth birthday.

"Even though I was going to go to school in England and didn't even want a car, and it was my money anyway," Charlotte grouched.

"This is a wonderful piece of engineering, Charlotte. Later I'm going to practise lifting it."

"It is rather heavy. And by the way you're stroking the wheel as you drive, I have to believe you're not going to drop it."

Erika pulled the car out of the department store parking garage into traffic. "Of course not! Will your brainwashed servants be troubled by me making a car hover?"

Charlotte frowned. "Staff, not servants. Maybe you shouldn't lift it right in front of anybody - there's only so much the human mind can overwrite."

"Could you make them not see it at all?"

"Yes, certainly, but it's a lot more effort on my part, and I have to be vastly more specific: it would be perfect to cover up a single incident, but I'm thinking in the long-term here, and about things that I might not be able to predict. Making their brains do the work is tremendously more reliable. A few of them vaguely remember that Raven had red hair as a child, but none of them know he's got blue skin."

"Did Raven go to school, too?"

"Not until he was a teenager - his control wasn't very good and we were too scared of a slip-up. He came with me to the boarding school in England, though - it was a small group of people, so I could easily cover any problems. He didn't stay after I left, though, so he finished high school in Oxford, at a day school."

"Yes, boarding schools are very small but very vicious places. I can see how a single idea, positive or negative, could have a great deal of currency there." Even Erika couldn't get a car of this size moving at any speed in New York, so they idled in traffic. "Let's head out to Brooklyn now and park this thing."

"Okay. Erika, I know you're focused on finding Doctor Shaw, and I agree that needs to be our first priority, but after that, well, I keep thinking about what you said to Harriet. That she deserves to know she's not alone. And about Raven, outcast because of how she looked. We can find those children and adults, at least the ones in the US, for a start, and let them know who they are."

"And what, adopt the ones who've been thrown out?"

"I was thinking more along the lines of a school."

"Teach them to fight, so they're ready when people come for them. I like that."

"Again, I was thinking more along the lines of a school."

Erika thumped Charlotte's leg, affectionately. "Yes, of course you are. And I agree that they should have an education. I used to want to go to university, myself, the same as my mother did. But they need to learn more than that, otherwise we're painting a target on them, gathering them all together." There were very clear images of herself as a small child, being expelled from her school, sent instead to one with only Jewish girls, yellow stars on their coats.

"We're not rounding them up, though. We're providing a safe haven."

"It won't remain secret forever. Mutants won't remain secret forever - look at Agent Duncan, giving Harriet the resources to build that machine."

"We can protect them, you and I."

"Not everywhere, and not always. Besides, you're assuming that we both survive Shaw, and her mutants are salvageable."

"Of course they are! I mean, I'm not opposed to fighting them if we have to, but we haven't seen them do anything terrible."

"Frost hurt me, telepathically. And Shaw, well, she doesn't break you. She bends you the way that she wants you to be. She makes your powers stronger, certainly, but your soul weaker. The only saving grace for me was that Shaw killed my mother: I knew from the start what she was."

Charlotte put an arm around Erika's shoulders, who was staring straight ahead as they moved slowly through the Manhattan traffic. "I wish I could undo what happened."

Erika smiled, suddenly and brightly. "You're the first person who's said that and truly meant it, not because you want something from me. Thank you."

Charlotte smiled, too. "But I do want something from you. I want you."

Erika froze for a moment, her eyes darting to the side before staring straight ahead.

"Erika? I'm sorry to startle you, I thought you knew I was a queer."

"I'm not offended, please don't think that. I'm just…that's not something I've thought about. With women. Or with a friend." She didn't pull away from Charlotte's arm, though.

"Oh, God, I've made such a hash of this. But really, you've never thought about kissing a woman?"

Erika blushed slightly, and Charlotte was entirely charmed.

"You have, haven't you?"

"When I was in the army in Israel. My field commander. But almost everyone had schoolgirl crushes on their commanders, so I didn't think anything of it. Besides, she despised European Jews; we were all weaklings who lined up to be killed, in her eyes."

"Do you ever intend to go back there? To Israel?"

Erika shrugged. "Better there than anywhere else, I suppose. And the Mossad helped me hunt down Shaw, in the early days. When we disagreed about which Nazis had priority, they cut me loose. Any other security force might have tried to kill me for knowing too much about their operations, but they didn't even try."

"You could stay with me. After Shaw, I mean."

She shrugged again. "Why not?"

Charlotte could feel that weird detachment again, where Erika's emotions were not connected to anything she thought or said. They were halted in traffic again, and Charlotte couldn't think of anything else to do, so she leaned over and kissed Erika on the mouth.

Erika must be one of very few women who were entirely unafraid to make out with another woman in an open-topped car in the middle of Manhattan. Charlotte made the most of it, waving the most aggressive people away with gentle brushes of her telepathy. A few still saw them: some were turned on, most were frightened of or for them, and Charlotte used the high she was feeling from Erika's kiss to soothe their fears. On a whim, she linked Erika in to let her see things as she did. Erika laughed, quietly, then leaned down to kiss Charlotte's collarbone, just once, then smoothly rolled the car forward as the traffic started to move again.

*Can you see things through my eyes, too? Manhattan is a beautiful city in metal and magnetism.*

Charlotte could and did, and gasped at the beauty of the energy all around her, swirling through the streets in the form of cars and coins and people's jewellery and watches, the buildings flickering as elevators zoomed up and down. Unlike Charlotte's mental map of the people who buzzed around all over the island, Erika's senses kept everything linked to each other: the flux of the electricity in the buildings calling to the steel of their frames; magnetic fields everywhere rearranging, pushing against each other and swirling together and apart. Most beautiful of all, though, was the elegant web of the Brooklyn Bridge, and Charlotte laughed the whole way across it, holding her hands up as if she could catch the energies and hold them to herself.

"Erika, my lovely Erika! I can feel something magnetic way off that way - what is it?"

Erika smiled at her. "That's the Statue of Liberty. We should get a better view when we get nearer our destination."

"You haven't seen it before?"

"Not since I was seventeen."

They exited the bridge and cruised down into Brooklyn, into one of those areas that bridged the gap between classy restaurants and sleazy peep-shows; a mix of women with children and groceries walking past catcalling men; men in suits and those in overalls; women in very high heels and big coats hurrying along; a few transvestites out on the streets even this early in the evening. Erika parked the car in a semi-deserted restaurant car park, and, once they'd got out, pulled up the sunroof and locked it in place by its metal rims.

"Honestly, I don't know how your step-father expected you to go out in this thing and not get robbed."

"Maybe he was hopeful that I would?" Charlotte shook her head, too high on kissing Erika to be mean about even Kurt Marko. "Probably he wanted this car himself and giving it to me was a neat way around the trust fund."

"Come on, let's go to see the Statue. It's been a while."

They walked the two blocks to the dingy waterfront, and looked out at the mighty statue. Charlotte could still, a little, feel it with Erika's powers: the whole statue was a beacon. Charlotte had seen it innumerable times, though, and watched Erika's smile instead.

"America was generous after the war, maybe to make up for keeping us out while we could still have escaped. I first came here at seventeen."

Charlotte tugged her jacket closer with her free hand, chilled, but Erika was still cheerful.

"I knew Shaw had American connections - her German was accented, and she had spoken of America more than once - so I made it to an American sector and ended up on a ship of refugees bound for New York. My father and aunt visited New York, once, long before I was born."

"You don't sound very American, if you've been here that long."

"It was stupid to have come in the first place. I was completely unprepared. My English was terrible and I couldn't find out the first thing about Shaw - I checked out every Schmidt I could find before I realised she probably used a different name. It was a waste of time, so I decided to go back, maybe try to find a trace of her in Europe, somehow. I stowed away on the first ship I could find and ended up in County Kerry. The Sisters there said I could stay and go to school if they could baptise me, so I agreed."

Erika was wreathed in nostalgia and the glow from her arm being through Charlotte's, her usual anger turned down to a low simmer; Charlotte felt as if that anger had crept into her instead.

"That's horrible, my darling. What a cruel thing for them to do."

Erika turned to Charlotte at last. "It was only words, Charlotte. If you could change who you are by saying so, the camps would have been empty. No, the Sisters treated me very well: I was the living symbol of their charity."

"How could you stand it?"

"What does the statue say? 'Yearning to breathe free?' I can't have that, not until Shaw is gone. Anything that helps me with that goal was worth it. She made me what I am and she still owns my soul."

"Erika, no, your soul is your own."

"Breathe free, Charlotte. There is nothing stopping you. No chains, no training, no murder."

"There's you." Charlotte reached up and pulled Erika's face down for a kiss, unafraid of anyone watching. "I choose to share this with you - maybe you can share my freedom, too?"

Erika's kisses were softer than usual, and the sunset painted her in rich colours. "You make me think foolish thoughts, my dear." _A future_ , she doesn't say, even though Charlotte needs her to take that step, so much that it was suddenly crushing her heart.

\---

Harriet refused to be pulled away from her Cerebro printouts for hours after Charlotte and Erika had left, so Raven spent the time saying hello to the staff she remembered from their last visit - ten years ago, now - and introducing himself to the new gardener. They all seemed to have the idea that Harriet was Charlotte's student and Erika was some kind of visitor from Europe, but Raven couldn't tell whether that was because Charlotte had planted the idea, or if it was simply the most logical conclusion on beholding their motley group.

It wasn't as if Harriet was a boring person - every time Raven had got her talking, she was fascinating, with opinions on everything - but she wasn't used to people being interested in her, and tended to keep her mouth shut. Raven wasn't too surprised, having seen how hard Charlotte had fought to be taken seriously in a male-dominated department, and learning electrical engineering sounded even worse. By eight o'clock, the sun was going down, everyone had gone home, Raven was starving, and Harriet was still holed up in the ballroom with Cerebro.

Raven threw together some sandwiches, heated a saucepan of leftover soup, and carried it all upstairs on one of the serving trays. It was heavy, but he had good balance and strength - nowhere as good as Harriet's, though - and he made it safely to the door.

"Harriet! I've got dinner, let me in!"

"I'm sorry! On my way!" Footsteps scampered over, and Harriet opened the door. She was wearing her shoes again. "Can I take that?"

Raven glanced from her shoes to her face and Harriet blushed.

"No, I'm good. Come on, you need a break. The TV room is right next door."

"Near the antenna, of course. Lead on!"

They got themselves settled on the sofa in front of the TV - Raven checked each channel, but after so long in Oxford he didn't know any of the shows - and dragged around side tables for their food.

"Oh, _Route 66_! That's good." Harriet selected the show and while they ate, they happily watched the adventures of two attractive drifters helping people out.

"I wouldn't have thought you'd have time to watch TV," Raven said, polishing off a sandwich.

"I didn't, really." Harriet smiled, and put her soup spoon down. "But they'd built the first all-women dormitory at MIT, and they had recruited women students from all over the country. They tried to make us to socialise more than most of us wanted to, but watching TV together was a good compromise."

"It must have been amazing, surrounded by other brilliant women," Raven remembered boarding school somewhat less fondly, having to be constantly in fear of discovery, even if Charlotte could probably undo it afterwards. She hadn't slept well in the entire two years she'd been there.

Harriet's expression was rueful and familiar. "Not really. I mean, the education was great, amazing, and it helped having more than one woman in the class, but I had to take showers in the middle of the night and I certainly couldn't join the sports teams, even if I was still faster than most of them with my feet restrained. I suppose I just wanted to be…"

"Normal," Raven finished for her. "Look, I haven't been entirely honest with you."

"That's not how you really look, is it?" Harriet smiled again, and the expression softened the serious lines of her face. Raven reached out and tucked a stray lock of hair behind Harriet's ear; Harriet wriggled as if she was about to duck away, but didn't go. Her haircut looked like a home-made hack job, but Raven found it endearing rather than ugly: Harriet had better things to do than to worry about how her hair looked.

"How did you know?"

"Charlotte said that she'd been practising on people's minds since she was small, in case you slipped up. I thought that there must be something for them to see, a default form, perhaps. And I didn't mean that's not really you - of course it is, you chose it. I mean that it must be an effort. Like the way I have to walk with my shoes on."

"If I showed you, would you freak out?"

Harriet pondered the question for a moment. "Not unless there's something about your appearance that overcomes reasoned thought."

"You're overthinking this!" Raven laughed, and let go of his pretty blonde shape.

Harriet stared in amazement. It wasn't quite Erika's immediate compliments, but nonetheless Raven was pretty pleased with himself. He did a slow turn with his arms over his head and Harriet watched, her mouth open in surprise.

"I…I never thought…" Harriet's voice was tiny, but her face broke out in a genuine smile and Raven grinned right back, and flopped down on the sofa beside Harriet.

"It feels so good to be able to show people who I am. You know exactly what I mean."

Harriet nodded. "But why do you choose to appear as a girl? If I didn't have to, I wouldn't."

"I guess I started out that way - Charlotte assumed I was a girl, because she couldn't see anything to indicate otherwise - so that shape was the one I grew up with. It might be different if I had a big brain like you or Charlotte, I suppose, and was in a field that was mostly male. But I enjoy being around people and talking to them, and it's easier to be close to people as a girl."

"But not really close. Not to the real you."

Raven didn't think he'd been this happy since he finished school and realised he never had to go back. It was such freedom to have someone understand what he meant - not even Charlotte did, not this way.

"Harriet, thank you so much." Raven leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek, and Harriet blushed bright red, but took Raven's hand.

"Raven, I don't want you to think I'm being forward, but I like you. I mean, a lot." She smiled, embarrassed. "Now I sound like a teenager."

"It's okay. You're not being forward. Even if you were, the usual rules don't apply here."

"I liked you before I saw you this way, and now that I have, I think you're amazing."

Raven knew he was blushing, too, but at least his dark blue skin hid that. "I think you are, too."

"And I was so worried that I liked a girl, you know, but it turned out that you're really a boy! No wonder it felt okay." Harriet's beaming face blurred in Raven's vision and he suddenly realised he was crying.

"But I'm not a boy. I'm not a girl or a boy."

Harriet pulled her hands away. "Yes, you are. You're a boy, no matter how you pretend to look."

Raven got to his feet. "No."

"But you said you wanted to be normal. You can't be normal and be both a boy and a girl."

Raven blinked away the tears, but he was sure a few had escaped. "I can be anyone."

"And live like this? Hidden away from everyone? This is a great opportunity, but it could easily become a prison. We're lucky that we can blend in when we need to - what kind of life could we have without that?"

"I don't - What if I decided to be a girl?"

"I don't understand why you would want to."

"Because I'm not a boy."

"You can't just decide that!"

Raven couldn't take Harriet's utter certainty for a moment longer, and, shifting into his blonde self, ran down the hall and up the stairs to his old, familiar room. He flipped the mirror around so hard that it knocked a chunk of plaster out of the wall, then threw himself into bed, wishing desperately that Charlotte was here and taking back all the horrible things she'd ever thought about Charlotte not understanding. He was never leaving this room again.


	4. New Friends

The Avalon Gentlemen's Club seemed quite odd to Charlotte for a moment - unlike most of the lightly-disguised strip clubs in the area, there were no hard-faced women hanging around in the nearby parking lot. Charlotte let her mind sweep gently over the all-male denizens and staff of the club and realised.

"Oh! It's a discreet social club for homosexuals."

"I doubt we'd be welcome," Erika muttered.

"Homosexual men, to be more specific. It's really quite expensive - I didn't expect that out here in Brooklyn. Though they're hardly going to meet up where they might run into people they know, I suppose. Social ruination and all that."

"How do we find this mutant, then? He's probably going to think we're blackmailing him."

Keeping her fingers to her temple for a moment longer, Charlotte reached out for that bright mind that had glowed so clearly in Cerebro. "We're in luck - he's not a customer, he's a waiter. Angelo Salvadore. And, oh dear, he's been thrown out of home for being, and I quote, a 'freak', and sleeping on a friend's floor."

"Maybe he'll be receptive to our approach, then?"

"Perhaps. The tips are better here than the last place he worked."

"So where does he give the customers blowjobs? Inside the club or outside? And where's the secret door in case of raids?"

"Erika - I don't think…" Charlotte stopped as she realised Erika was right. "Oh. There's a few rooms out the back. Near the secret door. You know an awful lot about this."

"Some of my targets enjoyed places like this, before they went home to the wife and kids. The front door was usually guarded, but the escape door was secluded and well-locked."

"With nice strong steel locks." Charlotte sighed. "Well, that gives me an idea. Let's go."

They moved around the back of the club, where the more expensive cars were parked, and Charlotte made them invisible to the pretty teenage boy guarding the lot. There was an obvious fire door, and a less obvious door, with no handle, tucked away under a fire escape.

"Steel bolts," Erika noted cheerfully and popped the door open.

"Stay close to me - it makes it easier."

Erika threaded her arm through Charlotte's. "You're a very smooth talker, Charlotte Xavier."

Charlotte giggled and they entered the hidden area of the club. The loud noises of a kitchen were not far away, and that and the piped-in music almost covered the sounds of men having sex behind curtains hung from plywood partitions. A room or two at the rear of the club had been subdivided, and the curtains that were open revealed small and uncomfortable-looking rooms - more of a booth, really - with a concrete floor and no windows. A few had chairs, most had nothing at all.

"Classy," Charlotte muttered. The club had very strange mental overtones, all clashing together: fear, relief, lust, anger, hatred, delight… Charlotte was finding it hard to keep up. The few underground dyke bars she'd been to hadn't felt this way, though she could admit to herself that perhaps her own mental state at the time had something to do with that.

"Anonymous," Erika corrected.

Charlotte reached out and found a customer who had bought Angelo's services in the past - someone that Angelo considered relatively safe - and found the urge in his head to take Angelo out again tonight. It wasn't far from the surface, though he'd been intending to have another drink or two first. The man signalled Angelo and Angelo nodded, heading back to the kitchen area.

Erika pressed Charlotte and herself flat against the wall as a red-faced man and a sweaty busboy left their shabby room and headed into the club itself. They noticed nothing, though the busboy came close to brushing against them.

Angelo's customer made his way down the hall and Charlotte gently halted him, encouraging him to get out his wallet. She also nabbed his untouched drink, swilling it down with some relief: the atmosphere was heavy, in here, and her powers could do with a little blunting.

Angelo was a pretty, dark-eyed boy who couldn't be older than 18, dressed in tight black pants and a waistcoat, displaying beautiful swirling black tattoos over his shoulders and arms. The closest thing Charlotte had seen was the sample South Pacific Islander in her undergraduate anthropology textbook, but they didn't look quite like that, either. He approached his customer, and looked highly surprised when the man gave him a twenty, then headed into one of the plywood booths alone. He was even more surprised when Charlotte let him see who else was there with him.

He quickly tucked the money into his pocket. "I'm sorry, ladies, but you can't be here."

Charlotte smiled. "Angelo, we were here all along. It's one of those 'we'll show you ours if you show us yours' situations."

"The hell? I mean, maybe we can make an arrangement, but the boss isn't going to like it."

"I mean this," Erika said, holding out a hand and floating one of the metal-legged chairs over from the open booths.

Angelo stared, incredulous, and laughed. "You can - you're the same as me!"

"We're mutants like you, yes." Charlotte put her fingers to her temple, making the gesture obvious so that Angelo wouldn't be startled. *And we're trying to find even more mutants. I'm Charlotte Xavier, and this is Erika Lehnsherr.*

Angelo grinned, his whole face lighting up. "You want to see what I can do? No-one's going to notice me either?"

Charlotte nodded assent, and Angelo pulled off his waistcoat, leaving his upper torso bare. The tattoos flexed and folded outwards into beautiful, iridescent wings, shimmering in the dim light of the back room, and, with a little hop, they lifted him a foot into the air.

Charlotte and Erika stared in delighted amazement, and he dropped easily to the ground, the wings folding down along his arms.

"Pretty cool, huh?"

"Angelo, we can offer you a place to live and to practise using your abilities in peace. Erika and I are also hunting down a woman who enjoys hurting mutants, but that's our fight, not yours. It's up to you whether you'll help with that, and accepting the offer to come and stay with us is not contingent on your decision."

Angelo took a moment to parse the sentence, and nodded. "I'm not looking to fight - I've been in enough fights already. But I'm sure as hell not looking to stay here. I'm living a couple of blocks from here - let me tell my boss I'm quitting, and we can go get my stuff."

Charlotte shook his hand, welcoming, and Angelo ducked back to the kitchen area. There was a brief round of shouting, then he returned, wearing a loose sweater rather than the waistcoat. "Okay!"

They exited the way they had come in, Erika bolting the door again behind them.

"Wow, that's so handy! I wish I could move metal around!"

"And I wish I could fly, so I think we're even, there," Erika muttered, but there was no malice in it. "Did you have your wings all your life?"

"No, I got this big itchy spot on my back when I was fifteen, and little tiny wings grew out of it. They were useless to start with, but they kept growing, stuck to my skin, and after a few months they were strong enough for me to flex them, then fly with them. One time me and a friend drove over to Jersey, before dawn, and I flew all over the beach. It was the best." Angelo's excitement was making Charlotte want to dance down the street.

"Your friend was okay with that?" Charlotte asked, gently.

"Yeah, she's a big freak herself - oh, wait, she's a mutant too, isn't she?"

"We did pick up signs of two mutants in Brooklyn, but I can't say that the other one is your friend…?"

"Amparo Muñoz, but everyone calls her Darwin. But no, seriously, I think she's a mutant. She's a big brainbox, you know, so lots of people picked on her. When she was in fifth grade, she got pushed off a fire escape and she kind of bounced. Totally fine! Then she did this big school presentation on this guy Darwin and his theory about people and animals changing, and that's how she got her nickname."

"Congratulations, Charlotte, your research was beaten to the punch by a fifth-grader." Erika was far too amused for Charlotte's liking.

"Well, there's a bit more to it than that! Could we meet Miss Muñoz, by any chance?"

"Yeah, sure, she'd love to meet you, especially if you know about evolution and stuff. She's studying science. And it's her place I'm crashing at."

Amparo's apartment wasn't far, in a shabby, noisy building where children were still playing out in the street long after sunset, using the pools of luminescence from the streetlights to carry on their games. Charlotte was glad they hadn't brought the car - it would have been very out of place here. They walked up to the fifth floor, and Angelo knocked on the door.

"Darwin! It's me but I've got company!"

"Bring him in, I've just made coffee."

Angelo unlocked the door and escorted Charlotte and Erika inside. The apartment was tiny, almost filled by a bed and a bench with two barstools and a hotplate, no bathroom in evidence. Books were stacked under the bench, though Charlotte wasn't sure if they were holding it up or if that was the only storage space available. Amparo, a tall black woman with close-cropped hair, was sitting on one of the barstools, reading a tattered microbiology textbook.

"After the last few days, I'm starting to think that being a mutant increases the likelihood that you'll end up a scientist," Erika muttered, under her breath, but Amparo heard it.

"Did you say 'mutant'?"

"Yes!" Angelo slid a cardboard suitcase out from under the bed. "This is Erika, and that's Charlotte. They're looking for more mutants."

"Call me Darwin," she replied, "And what do mean by mutants, exactly?"

"We're mutants ourselves," Charlotte started.

"You and Angelo found each other, but I thought I was alone until a few days ago," Erika interrupted. "My abilities were exploited by a woman calling herself a scientist. When Charlotte herself was a child she found another mutant child, Raven, who had been abandoned and was scavenging for food. I don't want anyone else to be alone like that. And even if you do refuse, you need to be aware that there are people out there who hurt mutants and we're going to stop them."

"You really mean that." Darwin stared at her.

"They're going to help me use my powers, Darwin," Angelo said, closing up the half-empty suitcase that held all his belongings. "And you're a mutant, too."

"Yeah, I get that. But I'm doing okay here - I'm getting through college, slowly. I drive my cousin's taxi in his off-hours. I've got my own place."

"Darwin, that's fine. You don't have to go anywhere you don't want to." Charlotte smiled and touched her fingers to her temple. *Here's where we live, and our telephone number: you are welcome any time. As you can see, we've got plenty of space. I'll send you a copy of my thesis, too.*

Darwin touched the side of her head, sending back as if she'd been doing it as long as Raven had. *Look, I'd love to visit - and it's summer vacation, so I don't have college right now. I've got to get things sorted with my cousin and the taxi, and then I'll come right over. Look after Angelo, will you? He's had a hard time with his family.*

*Call us from the station and we'll pick you up.*

"They're talking, aren't they?" Angelo asked Erika, who nodded: she was wary in a new environment, but her trust of Charlotte's abilities took away the edge of fear.

Darwin got up and hugged Angelo. "Take care, Angelo, and I'll join you in a day or two. Okay? And remember it's supposed to rain tomorrow and that really messes up the surface of your wings."

"Yes, Mama," Angelo grinned, and Darwin punched him lightly with obvious affection.

Charlotte shook Darwin's hand, and led their new recruit and his suitcase out the door. A few days ago, there'd only been two mutants in Charlotte's world. Now there were six, and more to come.

\---

Raven awoke to find a note under the door from Charlotte:

 _Recruited one new mutant - Angelo Salvadore. I put him in the Speckly Room, didn't want to wake you._

He shook his head, laughing. It was good to be back home. The Speckly Room was a bedroom with very expensive gold-flecked wallpaper that had been christened as such by a very young Raven. Of course, being home would make what Raven was doing next much more difficult: he was going to have to get Charlotte to cover for him once the staff arrived.

Flipping the mirror around to face him again, he concentrated and, instead of shifting into the familiar female shape with a face similar to his, changed only the colour and texture of his skin and hair. In a moment, a male version of pink-skinned, golden-haired Raven was staring back at him. Harriet's exasperated cry of "You can't just decide that!" still ran through his head, and maybe there was something to what she'd said. Why did Raven choose to look like a girl? Was it simply familiarity? To help Charlotte? It wasn't because it was the right body for him. He didn't feel that he was a boy, but he didn't think he felt that he was a girl, either.

Charlotte had told him that there were quite a few people who felt that their bodies were wrong - they should have been the opposite sex, or neither - but Raven didn't feel wrong in any chosen body, or in his own shape. Nor did he particularly feel like copying one of Charlotte's undergraduate girlfriends, a woman who dressed as an androgyne, not clearly male or female. Raven was himself, a fluid being. For all Charlotte talked about them being a new species, Raven was starting to think that they looked awfully similar to the old species when it came to bodies like Raven's, and rules of dress and behaviour. Erika seemed to be understanding, but Raven suspected that it was only because she was so defiantly and determinedly outside regular society that it was a badge of honour to accept the strange. Raven didn't think he wanted to be an outcast.

Instead, he was going to try being what Harriet assumed he already was, and be male for a while. He couldn't deny that he was attracted to shy, brilliant Harriet - he had an overwhelming desire to tease her until she lost her temper, which had been a sign for Raven since about Third Form. He sternly told himself that this wasn't about what Harriet thought as such: it was about taking in new perspectives. After a lifetime of only Charlotte knowing about him, maybe it was time to be uncomfortable.

Raven stared at himself again, and created some clothes - an open-necked polo shirt, plain navy pants - to go with this face. Strangely unsatisfied, he headed off to introduce himself to Angelo.

Angelo, it turned out, was already up and dressed, waiting for someone to come to find him.

"Hey, I'm Angelo. I've got wings, what can you do?"

Raven smiled at his directness, and flickered into a replica of Charlotte. "I'm Raven - Charlotte is my big sister."

"Wow, can you turn into anyone?"

Raven answered by turning into Angelo, though he wasn't sure the complicated arm tattoos he could see at edge of the man's shirt were right. He couldn't see any wings, but Angelo was small and slim, and his t-shirt was baggy. "Come downstairs and get some breakfast. Harriet's the only one you haven't met yet, and I'm sure she'll be down soon."

"Yeah, okay, thanks. I'm starving." He knocked shoulders with Raven as he pushed past him and headed for the stairs, and Raven felt the oddness of the skin there and the slightly raised feeling of the tattoos.

"Angelo, are those your wings? Those tattoos?"

"Uh huh. Charlotte and Erika said they could train me to use them better. I haven't had much chance to go flying around - too many people watching. But there's plenty of space out here."

Raven laughed. "No shortage at all. The staff aren't mutants, but you don't need to worry about them: Charlotte has fixed it so they literally can't see us using our abilities."

Angelo looked surprised, though not shocked. "She can change people's minds?"

"Yeah, but she's pretty ethical about it. Once she accidentally made Mother forget that we existed, and she's been really, really careful since then."

"Wish I could make some people forget I existed."

"If you're in trouble, Charlotte will help, I promise."

Angelo grinned up at Raven, cocky but shy at the same time. "No trouble that a place to stay and something to eat won't fix. I was staying with my friend Darwin - she's coming here too, in a few days - but she didn't need the hassle of having me there."

Raven clapped his hands. "Charlotte didn't tell me that she found both the Brooklyn mutants last night! Wow! Now, take a seat and I'll start some breakfast. The cook doesn't get here until nine."

"These staff - they really won't notice what's going on?"

Raven flickered into his blue form, though he kept the clothes on. "I can control this pretty well, now, but I couldn't when I was little. I was about eight or so when I showed up here, looking for food. Being hungry and cold is kind of all I remember from then."

"So Charlotte helped you stay here?"

"Yeah. Charlotte's father had died in an accident at work, and she convinced Mother that she'd adopted another child in her grief. Well, drunken grief. I'm not one hundred per cent sure that telepathy was really necessary there."

Angelo laughed. "Man, if someone tried that on my mother they would have been run out of the house."

"Good morning," Harriet sidled into the room, not quite looking at Raven. Angelo stood up, and Raven followed, reminding himself to use gentlemanly manners.

"Hey! I'm Angelo, I guess you're Harriet?"

"Harriet made the machine that helped us find you."

Angelo shook hands with her. "Thank you! I've got wings, what's your power?"

"Good morning!" Charlotte carolled, waltzing into the kitchen with Erika in tow. They must have been shopping as well as recruiting, because Erika was dressed in a plain black turtleneck and cigarette pants that fit properly, her hair scraped back. Raven giggled, reminded of nothing so much as a tall, scowling Audrey Hepburn.

*You look happy, Charlotte. Having fun with Erika?*

*Oh, don't be a sourpuss. We made out in the car, that's all. And we found two more mutants!*

*Yeah, Angelo told me about Darwin - are you going to go find the mutant at the prison today?*

*Are you going to change when the staff get here? I've got them all programmed not to see slip-ups with your skin or eyes, but nothing about you looking like someone else entirely.*

"I don't look like someone else," Raven said out loud, going through the fridge for French toast ingredients. "I look like me."

"That's all very well, Raven, but the staff expect you to be a girl."

"Does it matter?" Erika had put the kettle on the stove and was setting up the percolator. Raven's mouth watered at the smell of the coffee.

"Well, it's a lot of extra work for me." Charlotte sat down, next to Harriet. "But if you're planning to stay that way for a while, I'll do it."

"You won't bother if I'm simply trying things out?" Raven snapped, not even sure why this was making him so cranky.

*Raven, you know you're my first priority, but you're not my only priority right now.*

"Are they talking with, you know?" Angelo put his fingers to his temple and looked over to Harriet.

"Telepathy? Yes, they do that with alarming frequency."

"I don't find it alarming," Erika spoke over Harriet, as the kettle rose smoothly from the stove and poured boiling water into the percolator. "If you have a gift, you should use it."

"Stop it, all of you." Raven glared at the room in general. "This is how I want to look right now, and anyone who can't deal with that should just butt out."

"Fine." Charlotte had her lips pressed together. "That's fine. I'll make sure that the staff see you as your regular self."

"Thank you, Charlotte. That's all I wanted." Raven broke eggs into the bowl one by one, and found each solid thump and crack immensely satisfying.

Once everyone was eating breakfast, Charlotte leaned over and patted Raven's arm. *Sorry. I was surprised.*

"Don't worry about it," he replied out loud.

"We need to go to Bedford Hills today, to find the mutant in the prison. Raven, would you come with me?" *Erika has been… enthusiastic about releasing the entire prison, and we don't need a major problem.*

"Sure, what's your plan?"

Charlotte smirked and sipped her tea. "I thought that, since the CIA was obviously interested in collecting mutants, we should follow up on that." She looked around at the others. "Raven has a particularly good memory for faces and voices - I would say that some of it is to do with his power, but he's practised it, too. So Agent William Stryker and his pretty assistant - that's me - are going to be heading up to the prison today. I can make them see any identification that they need, and that should get us in without problems."

"If the mutant is a prisoner, you'd better sign her out properly," Angelo added. "I mean, you don't want them thinking she's escaped. That would be bad for her, and they might come looking."

"Good point, thank you. Once we get there, I'll be able to read the warden's mind and work out what forms we need to make this as smooth as possible." Charlotte finished her tea.

Raven put down her coffee cup and shifted into Stryker, careful not to bump Erika with her suddenly broader shoulders. "How's this? I didn't hear him say much in a normal speaking voice, but I doubt anyone at Bedford Hills will know him well."

"No, Stryker stays busy in Washington yelling at women who came all the way from England to help him." Charlotte smirked at Raven.

"Are you sure you don't want me to come along?" Erika spoke mildly, but the teaspoon in her hand was spiralling into a knot. She noticed, after a moment, and ran her fingers down the spoon to smooth it out again.

"No, Erika, I don't think it will be necessary. Someone familiar should be here if Darwin calls, and maybe you can start some training with Angelo and Harriet?"

"Sounds good." Erika flashed a toothy smile at the two in question. Angelo looked thrilled; Harriet cringed.

Charlotte got up from the table. "Now, just let me get changed into something more secretarial, and we'll be on our way."

"Mother had that beige suit she always wore with the rose brooch - it'll be well out-of-date now," Raven offered, and the two of them went upstairs together, arm in arm, peace restored.

\---

It was a very strange feeling for Erika, worrying about someone else's welfare. As Charlotte and Raven drove out the gate in a much more staid car - the Xaviers had several cars in addition to the convertible, all well-kept in their enormous garage - Erika thought for a moment that she should run after them, offer to go with them and protect them. She had no doubt that Charlotte and Raven would be fine in the prison, but disaster scenarios spooled through her head like a newsreel: car crashes, accidental shootings at the prison, their car going off the road into a lake. She shook her head to clear it. That was ridiculous - Charlotte and Raven had survived this long. They would be fine. It was Erika whose perceptions were skewed by suddenly having people around her that she would miss if they were taken away. It had been a long time since she felt that way, and it hadn't saved anyone last time.

"Harriet, go and find something more athletic to wear. Angelo, take your shirt off and we'll start by seeing what you can do."

"May I stay to watch Angelo?" Harriet asked, and Erika was pleased at how quickly she'd accepted Erika's authority. Harriet struck her as the type to be stubborn when she didn't see the point to something, not to mention someone who valued her intelligence far more than her physical abilities. Erika knew in her bones that both intelligence and physical training were needed for survival, but she didn't know how to explain that.

"Of course."

Angelo was delighted with the opportunity to really fly, and as he did, Erika and Harriet both watched with sheer joy. He could fly in all directions - even backwards, though that required a little more effort - but it tired him quickly. Erika sent Harriet to make up some sugar water for Angelo, for quick energy, as she watched Angelo swoop and dive.

"Hey!" Angelo hovered above Erika's head. "There's gardeners over there, and they're not even paying attention."

Erika watched the two men go about their work, unperturbed to be less than a hundred metres from a flying mutant. They obviously knew that Angelo and Erika were there, as they had politely nodded as they went past earlier, and yet nothing was registering now. "I suppose when Charlotte changes something, it sticks."

"I guess I'm more amazed to be at a place so rich they can afford white staff."

Erika laughed, and shoved up her sleeve, showing the camp tattoo to Angelo. "I don't think I'll ever understand the way America thinks. One moment my people are banned from entering the country, the next minute, there's a Jew running your Republican party and talking about being President."

Angelo shook his head, fluttering his wings. "Yeah, you get back to me when they're making the Reverend King the President, then we'll talk." He brushed Erika's shoulder with one wing, though, and Erika accepted that touch in a way she rarely felt able. Despite all the differences of race and nationality and experience, Angelo was a mutant like Erika, and that felt strangely comforting.

Harriet came running out of the house, carrying a glass of sugar water for Angelo. "Darwin called! She's at the station now!"

"Then I suppose we should go to pick her up. Are you coming?"

"For sure!" Angelo dropped to the ground.

"If you don't mind, I would be delighted to meet her. She sounded fascinating on the phone."

They all piled into one of the larger cars - Angelo wasn't sure how much luggage Darwin might bring - and drove out the gates. Charlotte had telepathically shown Erika how to get to the station, which was a good seven miles away, and the Bentley that she was driving now was just as smooth as the convertible.

Darwin was sitting on her suitcase outside the station, a far cry from the casually dressed student they'd seen at her apartment the previous night. She wore a knee-length floral dress, a hat and gloves, clutched a white handbag and wore plain white shoes with a heel; her posture was rigid and wary. When the car pulled up and she saw Angelo, though, she leapt to her feet and hurried over, beaming.

"Angelo! They treating you well?"

"You should see this place! It's huge! Get in!" Angelo climbed out of the car and collected Darwin's suitcase, heaving it into the trunk with some help from Harriet.

"Thanks - you must be Harriet?" Darwin climbed into the back seat next to Angelo. "Nice car, Erika."

"It's Charlotte's. As I suspect you already know."

"Didn't know, not surprised. Thank God you're here: these shoes are killing me and the hatpins are sticking into my head." She pulled the hat off and shoved it and her shoes in the handbag. Erika, for a moment, was vividly reminded of her mother when they were still in Germany, when Erika was small. She would forever be plaiting Erika's hair and scrubbing and ironing her clothes to be absolutely perfect, determined to ward off the stigma of "dirty Jew", to no avail. Darwin didn't look humiliated or angry, though, more pleased that she'd managed to make it through safely.

She leaned forward to talk to Erika. "Listen, I've been thinking about what you said to me and to Angelo, about fighting someone who hunts down mutants. What's going on with that?"

"She's calling herself Sabrina Shaw these days, but I knew her as Doctor Klara Schmidt. She worked with the Nazis, but she scorned their racial improvement ideas because they didn't go far enough. My parents and I had been brought to Auschwitz and I accidentally displayed what small powers I had then. In return, Shaw saved me from the gas chambers, but shot my mother dead as a motivation of sorts. As if I needed one. She then spent the next year and a half working to improve my abilities."

"Did it work?" Harriet's voice was concerned and soft, and Erika was glad of that. If she had asked that question in her usual flat tone of scientific curiosity, Erika would have beaten her, mutant or not.

"Yes, it did. Fear and pain are great motivators, as I'm sure some of you are aware."

"I can spit acid," Angelo suddenly volunteered. "The first time I did it, I gave a guy really bad burns. I didn't mean to, but he was hurting me. And I put him in the hospital. Everyone thought something had spilled on him."

"Were there other mutants at the camps?" Darwin asked.

"Maybe. Shaw had other subjects, but he didn't keep any of them the way he kept me. I thought at the time I was the only one."

A murmur of agreement came from the back seat. Even Harriet nodded.

"Eventually, most of the prisoners were sent on death marches through Poland, but some of us were left behind in the chaos. All the guards fled, and Shaw must have gone with them. I spent many years tracking her, but it's only recently that I found her. Charlotte tells me that she appeared on the CIA's radar for bribing both American and Russian military men - what they don't understand is that she has more mutants with her."

Darwin's voice held both sympathy and rage. "You think she did to them what she did to you?"

"Probably. I suppose it's possible she found mutants depraved or desperate enough to work with her voluntarily, but she's had at least one mutant - a telepath named Emory Frost - with her since he was a teenager. We've seen two others, as well, but we don't know who they are."

"Okay, so she's somehow worked out about mutants, and she's got her own little mutant army. She must have plenty of money to bribe soldiers and travel around as she does. So what does she actually want?" Darwin was hanging half over the front seat now, caught up in the discussion,

"That's a good point," Harriet added. "If I was a scientist with lots of money and some mutant friends, I'd study their mutations. I mean, if I happened to be evil I'd probably rob some banks for funds, but I can't see any need to talk to the military."

"Unless they have mutants?" Darwin offered.

Harriet shook her head. "I was working for the division of the CIA that was supposed to deal with mutant issues. If there were known mutants in the American military, they would have been brought to the CIA. I think that's the very cover story Charlotte and Raven are using today at the prison, but at the CIA we had no way to detect mutants, not without a telepath to operate Cerebro."

"The important point," Erika noted, "Is that Harriet and Charlotte have developed a mutant-finding machine. Even if they can't find Shaw directly, they might be able to find her associates. And even if we can't increase the range enough to find Shaw's associates, we can at least find other mutants and protect you from Shaw. As well as from other problems."

"And meanwhile build your own mutant army?" Darwin didn't seem angry at the idea.

"Yes. Charlotte prefers the word 'friends', I believe."

The big car crunched along the gravel driveway of Charlotte and Raven's home, past the gardeners and handyman, and on to the garage. Harriet went red and ducked her head.

"What are you doing?" Erika asked her, bluntly.

"I heard - nothing."

"I heard nothing, too, but I'm not going tomato-coloured over it," Angelo commented.

"Okay, I, uh, I have good hearing and a good sense of smell as well as strength and balance and my feet. The staff were wondering why a nice girl like me would ride around in a car with, uh, they used some unpleasant words. About the rest of you."

"Don't blush on my behalf," Darwin shrugged. "I promise you, we've all heard worse, said right to our faces. Come on, let's go inside and you can give us the tour."

Harriet helped with Darwin's luggage again, and Darwin was appropriately impressed with her strength as they all vanished inside. Erika threw a dark look at the gardeners and handyman in their little knot of smug gossip. The long metal handle of the shovel that one of them leaned on suddenly crumpled under his weight, throwing him to the ground.

Erika turned on her heel and went inside. Charlotte might have made sure that no-one noticed their mutant powers, but it seemed she was far less ready for other routes of attack.

\---

"We've got Alex Summers with us now, and we'll be home before dark," Charlotte promised Erika over the phone. "We're just going to swing by two of the other signals - they're hardly even out of our way."

"She didn't take that well, did she?" Raven called from the car. He'd dropped the appearance of William Stryker now, but he was still appearing as a tall blond version of himself. Charlotte was more disoriented by the change than she'd thought she would be. When she wasn't looking, Raven's mind was familiarbecause it was similar to the way Raven felt in his usual female body. To feel that mind thento see a male body was very odd.

"No, Erika thinks we should bring Alex home at once."

Alex grinned, the first real expression other than wariness they'd seen from her. "Gotta say, I'm enjoying the fresh air."

"Then we drive on!"

It had been frighteningly easy to liberate Alexandra Summers from Bedford Hills, with the right badge and authority, knowing which forms to fill out, when to smooth over the prison governor's concerns. Alex, as she preferred to be called, had been in solitary confinement by request, and the prison seemed all too enthusiastic to hand her over to the CIA, who, they said "might have a chance of controlling her." Alex herself - a blonde woman with a butch haircut and a similar line in leather jackets and jeans - had been reticent about her power so far, but from the brief second-hand glimpses that Charlotte had gleaned from the governor's mind, it seemed that she'd killed someone in an unexplained way. No wonder she didn't want to discuss her abilities, if that's the way they'd started out.

Alex's silence aside, they had a lovely drive through Westchester County, stopping briefly in Annandale-on-Hudson, where the mutant in question turned out to be a newborn baby girl with a tiny, delightful mind that Charlotte didn't dare touch. Instead she dropped a suggestion in her parents' minds that if little Jean or her older sister Sarah ever had any unusual medical issues, to call Doctor Xavier. With all the worry and intense focus that the parents had for their toddler and newborn, it was easy enough to do: their minds were open to any fragment of information about their children.

The other mutant was no more suitable: Freddie Dukes, originally of Texas, was a teenage girl in a travelling circus. She had a strongman act - presumably that was her mutant ability - with an occasional sideline as the Fat Lady, and absolutely no interest in leaving.

"She's content where she is," Charlotte told Raven as they parked a block away from where the circus was being set up. "I can't see any benefit in taking her anywhere."

"Yes, but we should tell her where to find us in case of any trouble," Raven agreed. "I mean, I doubt Doctor Shaw is asking nicely when she recruits." He turned around to Alex, in the back seat. "Let me tell you about Doctor Shaw."

Charlotte concentrated on the young Miss Dukes, who was currently carrying massive boxes of steel tent pegs over to the men pulling the ropes of the huge tents. *Freddie Dukes, my name is Charlotte Xavier. I'm talking to you mind-to-mind, with telepathy.*

*What? Like in science fiction movies?*

*Yes. Your talent is to be very strong, and mine is to talk to people in their minds.*

*Huh. Thought something was weird when I could lift more than the world record. Thought maybe I had glands or something. That's what my Mom used to say.*

*There's nothing wrong with you, Freddie. You're a mutant, and so am I. I can see you're happy here -*

*Earning good money, too. A man's wage, not a girl's.*

*Good for you, Freddie. If anyone ever gives you any trouble, this is my address. You can always come there if you're in danger, or if someone tries to make you work for them instead.*

*Like who?*

*Your strength could make you very valuable to criminals. I just want you to be aware that other people know about mutants, and might try to hurt you.*

*I'm keeping my head down, okay?*

*You can visit or call any time.*

*Uh, thanks. I guess.*

*You're very welcome.*

Charlotte broke off contact and returned her full attention to the car, where Raven and Alex were fiddling with the radio dial to try to pick up some good music.

"Oh, Charlotte, you're done? She's not coming with us?"

"No. She enjoys her job and she's in no danger. Let's get going before Erika comes looking for us!"

Raven laughed and gunned the engine. "Or the CIA comes to see what Agent Stryker's been doing!"

Raven's joke seemed less amusing when Agent MacTaggert called later that night.

After dinner, Charlotte had tried another session with Cerebro, but hadn't managed to extend her range at all. Erika and Harriet agreed that this was an issue with the single antenna they were using rather than with Cerebro or with Charlotte, and planned to work on it in the morning.

"It's given me a bit of a headache, to be honest," Charlotte told Erika. "Would you care to come upstairs for a nightcap?"

Raven had rolled his eyes but Erika had laughed and agreed, so they'd been drinking good whiskey and casually making out on the couch in the study when the phone rang. Charlotte picked up the phone, and immediately went quiet when she heard the voice on the other end.

"Good evening, Doctor Xavier. This is -"

"Agent MacTaggert, yes. From where, exactly, are you calling?"

"One of the few unbugged payphones in the District, don't worry. I picked up that little impersonation at the prison this afternoon - Agent Duncan had been tracking unusual cases and Alexandra Summers was one of them."

Charlotte grimaced at her own stupidity. She had to remember she wasn't the only one on the trail of mutants. "And how may I help you, Agent?"

"First up, you should get an unlisted number. Secondly, I've got some information that I can't act on, but maybe you can. Did you hear about the debacle in Miami? Miss Shaw and her people got clean away."

"Am I to assume you've found her again?" Charlotte thought it best not to confess that she and Raven had actually witnessed Shaw's getaway.

"We've found out about a meeting that she's got scheduled with a Soviet general, at his dacha near Leningrad. We've got a few agents in the area, but Miss Shaw isn't top priority, so my bosses have refused permission to use any of the agents even for surveillance, let alone a capture."

"Oh, and how exactly are they explaining what happened in Miami? Spontaneous water spouts?"

MacTaggert coughed, embarrassed.

"I see. Tell me where, exactly, and I might be able to provide you with more information. It's probably best if the CIA doesn't send anyone in: Doctor Shaw has a telepath, someone with the same power as me."

"It's good news all around then!" MacTaggert sighed. "All right. After that little performance at the prison, I'm sure you can get yourself out of any trouble you find. Be careful."

"Of course." Charlotte wrote down MacTaggert's directions and hung up. As she turned around she nearly collided with Erika, who was hovering as close behind her as humanly possible.

"Shaw's going to be in Russia? We need to go."

"In two days, so we're going to have to hurry to get there in time. I think it should just be you and I, though - Raven can look after things here. We can't possibly get the permits and visas in time, so the fewer people the better."

"I've got a few sets of Soviet identity papers: you can have one. I've looked for Doctor Shaw in the Soviet Union before." She looked at the directions Charlotte had written. "That's not so far from Leningrad. It will be a thousand times easier with your powers to help. We can travel in the train, not on top of it!"

"Oh, yes, I'd much prefer that."

Erika pulled Charlotte onto the couch. "Do you think you can handle their telepath?"

"I was thinking more along the lines of me protecting us from the telepath and you stopping him." Charlotte slid her hands into Erika's hair, at each temple. "His shields were very strong, but he didn't do anything else."

"Not while he was shielding, I suppose, but he disoriented me for more than long enough."

"You broke free of his hold?" Charlotte could feel Erika's memories of the event: a few moments of horrible physical pain and terrifying memories, broken by Erika's vast and focused anger.

"Shaw has to be my top priority. She was then and she is now."

Charlotte must have let her disappointment show, because Erika leaned in and kissed her. "I care about you very much, Charlotte: you are the most amazing woman I have ever met. But what would you have me do? Settle down in your big house and rescue mutant children until all the rooms are full?"

"Yes?" Charlotte had, in fact, been thinking of exactly that. There must be more young men and women like Alex Summers out there, at the very least. And the idea of being here with Erika, her brilliant mind and wonderful powers, making a safe haven for those like them - if Charlotte could find herself a research position at one of the New York universities, and that sounded perfect.

"No. Don't you ever listen to me? I can't be free, I can't make choices like that, not while Shaw is out there." Erika tried to pull away from Charlotte, but Charlotte held on to her wrists.

"But afterwards? Once you've stopped Shaw?"

Erika wrenched her hands away. "Don't talk to me about that. I can't - you want so much from me and I don't have that much to give. Everything in me has been focused on finding Shaw. Everything. I have to find Shaw and ask her… I have to kill her. She murdered my mother to teach me a lesson, can't you understand? Don't weaken me. Don't ask me for things I can't give you."

"I'm sorry. I don't want to take from you, Erika, my lovely Erika. I want to give you everything I can. I want to make you stronger, not weaker. I can't deny that I want all of you, but I won't take anything you don't offer me. But one day Shaw will be gone, and then what will you do? Will you stay with me?"

Erika took a step towards Charlotte again. "All I ever thought was that when Shaw was dead, it would be over and I could rest."

Charlotte pulled her down to the couch. "It means that when Shaw is gone, you can stop fighting and let me look after you." She kissed the curve of Erika's neck, then wrapped her arms around her, pulling her close.

"And if I die in the attempt, will you finish Shaw for me? Please?"

"Better than that. I'll keep you alive so that you can do it yourself."

Erika kissed Charlotte, hard and deep, pulling herself up so that she straddled Charlotte's legs. Her kissing was clumsy and overwhelming, but Charlotte knew that this was because there was no artifice in her seduction; none of the tricks she'd used to get information or get close to a target, just the desire to know Charlotte completely. Charlotte slid her hands up under Erika's turtleneck, lifting it off over her head. That broke their kiss, but Erika leaned back down and kissed Charlotte's hair, then her face and neck and exposed collarbones. Erika's body was a confusing mix of raised, tough scars and soft skin, but Charlotte loved it all, reaching up to run her hands over her lean and muscular body and small, soft breasts in a plain black bra.

The buttons down the front of Charlotte's dress popped open - metal shanks, she thought vaguely - and her belt smoothly unwrapped itself. It tickled as it slid around her waist and Charlotte giggled, pulling Erika downwards to her bra. "Undo that. Not with your hands."

Erika laughed, too, and Charlotte felt a gentle tug at her back, then her bra was free. She wriggled her shoulders out of her dress sleeves and out of the bra, dropping it on the carpet. Charlotte caught an almost shy expression on Erika's usually stern face, and remembered what Erika had said before - that she'd never made love with a woman, or anyone she actually liked.

*Come here,* Charlotte told her, words and direction moving together. *Put your hands on me. You're not going to hurt me.*

Erika tentatively cupped one of Charlotte's breasts in her callused hand, and Charlotte couldn't stop herself leaning into her touch, desperate for more. She kept her own hands firmly on Erika's waist, though, not wanting to push her too fast. Erika smiled at Charlotte's reaction, and held her more firmly, running the calluses over Charlotte's nipple until Charlotte knew she was flushing bright pink with want.

Letting her own bra fall to the ground, Erika unzipped her trousers without touching them, and got off Charlotte for a moment to kick them free, though she still had her underpants on. She didn't remove her hands from Charlotte, and Charlotte pulled her back down as fast as possible. Erika ground herself on Charlotte's thigh, leaning all the way down to kiss Charlotte more, trapping her hand between the two of them. Charlotte desperately wanted to get her hands into Erika's pants - and Erika's into hers - but Erika's mind pushed that little nudge aside. It had only been a suggestion, but Erika's single-minded focus applied here, too - distracting or uncomfortable feelings were shoved brutally away or avoided, in favour of her goal. It didn't bother Charlotte at all, except in that Erika had a bad association with someone fingering her, and she moved her left leg so she could wriggle around and grind against Erika as Erika did against her, their bodies pressed close.

Charlotte came, gasping, and the mental backlash flipped Erika over the edge, too, even though she had been nowhere near orgasm before. She clung to Charlotte and shook, their sweaty bodies stuck together.

*Sorry,* Charlotte sent, lazily. *I tend to do that to people. If I can get a feedback loop set up, it's even better, but you're ruining my concentration.*

Erika didn't have any words, not even in her mind. She stroked Charlotte's cheek with two fingers and relaxed completely.

"You want to run off to Russia?" Raven demanded when Charlotte woke him at five o'clock the next morning. "Without me?"

"The fewer the better," Charlotte replied, and hugged Raven. "Someone needs to be in charge here, and you don't speak Russian."

"Neither do you!"

"I'll pick it up in a few hours, and forget it all just as fast."

Raven hugged Charlotte back, reluctantly. "Be careful, okay? Don't do anything stupidly brave like jumping into the ocean."

"Miami was warm - I have no intention of going swimming in Russia!"

"You know what I mean."

"I promise to keep my involvement to hiding and mind control. Deal?"

"Deal. Because if you get killed, I'm going to have to kick Erika's ass and I don't know if I can do that without serious physical injury to my person. I love you, Charlotte."

"I love you too. I'll call you when we get to Europe, but Erika's organising the travel from there. I'll call whenever I can."


	5. New Enemies

When everyone woke up and realised that Charlotte and Erika were gone, the first thing they wanted to do was to throw a party. Harriet's refusals to go along with it only made Darwin, Angelo and Alex more insistent.

"Okay, okay." Raven couldn't believe that he was the one playing responsible adult. "We should spend today checking out everyone's powers. Yes, you too, Harriet - don't go hiding in Cerebro all day. Then, tonight, party!"

"Come on, I've been in prison for a year," Alex complained, but Raven shook his head.

"You can party if you want, but I've got the keys to the good liquor."

"Can we at least get some cigarettes?"

"I've got a few left to tide you over," Darwin offered, pulling a crumpled pack from the pocket of her men's jeans, and, just like that, everyone was happy to go down to breakfast together.

Darwin's power was amazing - she could adapt to anything. She put her head in the ornamental pond and developed gills and an extra eyelid; Raven punched her at her request and she grew a set of rock-hard scales that left Raven shaking his fist and blowing on his knuckles. They spent the morning coming up with elaborate tests - climbing a tree with no conveniently low branches or leaping from the third floor balcony while Angelo flew circles around her, laughing - but as fascinating as she was, Darwin insisted that everyone else have a turn, too. Raven finally persuaded Harriet into a tracksuit and bare feet, and her strength and agility were far beyond what anyone had predicted. When she had the thumbs on her feet turned under so that she could wear shoes, her balance was severely compromised: without her shoes, she could leap, climb and run at a tremendous pace. They all went for a run around the house and tried to keep up - Raven made his legs as long as possible and Angelo had a surprising burst of speed for a short, skinny guy - but Harriet lapped them all with ease.

Alex was the hold-out, even after she and Raven had made a trip into town for cigarettes and snacks. As they all sat on the lawn, eating lunch and avoiding the gardeners - who definitely didn't want Darwin and Angelo on the property - Raven tried to press the subject.

"So, what is your power? I mean, you don't have to show us if you don't want to. But you must be able to do something!"

"Yeah, I can." Alex fiddled nervously with a cigarette. "I wish I couldn't. I can't do it here."

"We're outside, and we can make sure there's no-one around," Raven offered.

Alex looked around at the house and its big windows, and the perfectly manicured gardens. "Nah. There'd be property damage. And maybe Charlotte wouldn't care, but I'd feel kind of weird wrecking stuff on purpose and making other people have to fix it."

Raven finished his sandwich and thought hard. "Oh! Wait, I know somewhere where you won't damage anything. Charlotte's father and our step-father worked on nuclear projects, and our step-father took the possibility of nuclear war quite seriously. He built a nuclear bunker under the house and he used to make us all do evacuation drills."

"I don't want to blow up your basement, either."

"Are you stronger than a direct hit from a 25 kiloton nuclear bomb? Kurt was pretty paranoid."

"Yeah, you can do it!" Darwin punched her in the arm, encouragingly.

Harriet agreed. "I would be astonished if your power was greater than the nuclear bombs dropped on Japan."

Alex shrugged. "If you're talking that kind of scale, I guess I'm a lightweight. I'll do it, as long as you all stay out of the way."

Raven and Angelo cheered, and Darwin thumped Alex on the back. Even Harriet looked pleased, and started making cryptic notes in her ever-present notebook.

The actual trial was more exciting than they had expected: they cleared some junk out of the bunker and Darwin found a dozen naked mannequins in a store room.

"What the hell, Raven? Your step-father had some seriously weird hobbies."

Raven laughed, and poked one of the mannequins in the belly. "God, I didn't realise we still had those. I remember them from when I was little - they were meant to be artistic decorations at one of Mother's parties to raise money for the war effort, but she decided they were tacky. Stick one in the bunker and Alex can take it down!"

Alex wouldn't proceed until they had demonstrated the weight of the doors and the solidity of the bunker, but eventually she agreed, pushing everyone else out and waiting until the hydraulic door lock engaged.

"Hey, there's no window!" Darwin said, disappointed.

Harriet sighed, too. "I really wanted to make some observations."

"Let's just get her to be comfortable using her power, first," Raven replied, congratulating himself on his leadership.

All of a sudden the red emergency light blinked, and a klaxon startled all of them. Raven dragged the door open and found the metal struts of the room were on fire.

"Alex!" He dashed in, grabbing a fire extinguisher, and the others ran in to do the same. Alex stood in the middle of the room, hands by her sides, as the mannequin burned to ashes. They all ran about, frantically putting out the fires, but Alex didn't move.

"Are you okay?" Harriet asked her, finally.

"Yeah. Last time I let go this way, I ended up in prison."

"Last time I used my power on someone, they ended up in hospital, man," Angelo said. "That's why we're here. No-one's hurt."

"Once we've got this extinguished, I'd love to take some readings," Harriet added. "I don't see any reason why your power can't be contained, or at least channelled."

"Really?" Alex still looked sceptical.

"Measurements first. There's plenty of equipment here, so it won't take me long to put something together."

Raven put out the last patch of flames. "Great! Harriet, you go do that, and the rest of us can go practice with Angelo's spitting. I haven't seen it yet, and I really want to!"

\---

Erika was finding Charlotte to be a superb travel companion, even if neither of them enjoyed aeroplanes. They'd held hands under a blanket like schoolgirls all the way to London, and Charlotte ruthlessly used her powers to get them on an immediate flight to Hamburg, where they could transfer for Helsinki and catch the train to Leningrad. Erika had passports, but her papers weren't up-to-date: the Soviets changed the requirements so frequently that Erika tended to just avoid the authorities completely on border crossings. She had to admit that Charlotte would make things a lot easier.

It worried her, sometimes, how much easier it was. Erika had been on her own for so long that she was used to her own patterns, competent in moving quietly through a busy and uncaring world. Charlotte was the exact opposite, pretty and casually flirtatious, enjoying everything and everyone around her. Occasionally Erika wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake her until she stopped smiling, but more often Erika wanted to kiss Charlotte until that joy rubbed off on her. This must be falling in love with someone: things that should irritate her were charming. She couldn't stop looking at Charlotte's soft little belly, or her pretty hands, or her glossy curls, as if she stood out from the grey world in full colour.

They made it to Leningrad in plenty of time, with hours to spare before Shaw's meeting was scheduled and no difficulties at the border.

"I always thought Russian women dressed drably or in uniforms, but there's not so much difference to England," Charlotte exclaimed in surprise.

"This is Leningrad, not some factory town in Siberia!" Erika had changed her practical black pants and turtleneck for a dark blue dress - the wide, slightly old-fashioned skirt left her plenty of room to run - but had otherwise avoided all Charlotte's anticipatory fashion ideas about the Soviet Union. "How is your Russian coming along?"

"Very well," she replied, in passable if accented Russian. "It won't remain with me unless I study it properly, though. I think I'm hearing it in everyone else's minds. Not that people think in language, exactly, but it's - " she wove her fingers together in a complicated gesture. "Like that. People who are bilingual from childhood are even more complicated."

"Really? Why?"

Charlotte tucked her arm through Erika's. Many of the other women on the street by the station walked arm-in-arm, so Erika didn't pull away. "Language helped form your brain. No-one is a self-made creature - the language and memories of our past - all of the memories, not merely the strongest - make us who we are, just as much as our willpower or genetic inheritance."

"I'm not sure whether that's enlightening or depressing, thinking of others shaping my brain that way."

Charlotte smiled. "I said it's not only the strongest memories, the ones from which you draw your rage. All of them."

"We don't have time for philosophy, Charlotte. We need to steal a truck."

It wasn't difficult, with their particular abilities, liberating a small truck that would be able to handle the ice-gouged muddy roads outside the city. Charlotte drew a map based on MacTaggert's directions, and Erika drove north, carefully following Charlotte's instructions to avoid checkpoints.

"Where did you learn to drive a truck?" Charlotte asked, leaning against Erika's side as if she were cold, even though the sun was warm.

"I'd say the army, but really it's not hard to drive anything, once you can feel the engine. This truck has a sticky clutch, but I don't really need it to change gears, so…" she shrugged. Before Charlotte, her abilities just existed, carrying her through. Now she had to think about them, but that was strangely enjoyable, not at all like Shaw's ruthless probing. "When we get there, I want you to leave Shaw to me."

Charlotte frowned. "Do you think? She's going to be directing the others, so maybe I should control her first?"

"No. Control the telepath first, or at least keep him out. There should be no need for you to talk to Shaw at all."

"I would ask her how she found mutants, though."

Erika felt her temper building and made an effort to quash it. "No. Anything she did, you and Harriet can put together. Better, without torturing anyone."

Charlotte stayed close, unafraid. "I know you're going to kill Doctor Shaw, and I'm worried about you."

"Not about her?" Erika laughed and it sounded like a sharp bark.

"I've never killed anyone myself - never even thought about it - but I think we can agree that there are small number of people without whom the world is better off. A very small number. Eichmann, for example."

Erika nodded, sharply.

"I'd love to say 'let's take her to justice', but there's people who never get brought to justice, and I don't know what evidence you have on Doctor Shaw."

"Not as much as there should be - she stayed below the radar pretty effectively. And most people she encountered are dead. Of course, there might be more evidence under her American name." Erika couldn't believe that Charlotte was agreeing with her, Charlotte who had never known deprivation or terror or pain.

"If there was evidence under any connected name, the CIA would have dug it out, I'm sure. No, I keep thinking about a girl from my boarding school, whose younger sister was in my class. This girl, she found a secretarial job in London - one of those 'find a husband' type of jobs - and one night she had drinks with a few co-workers. They raped her and injured her so severely that she ended up in hospital for a week. She ignored everyone's advice and went to the police, who laughed at her, then her company fired her for 'spreading malicious gossip'. The story went around school, and everyone agreed how stupid she was, even her sister. I'm not saying I would want those rapists to die - I'm saying that the law and justice don't match up for a lot of people."

Erika nodded. "If that girl had the power we do, maybe she could find her own justice. Outside the systems designed to keep her in line."

Charlotte nodded. "And that's why I'm not worried about stopping Doctor Shaw. I got a glimpse of what she did to you - that first night, when I rescued you from the ocean, your rage was so tremendous that it overwhelmed my everyday shields entirely - and that was more than enough for me."

The truck bumped off a cracked concrete road and into a rutted track in the pine forest - they would need to bypass Komarovo - and they both fell silent for a few minutes while Erika got a feel for the road.

"Charlotte, why are you worried about me?"

"Because you've made your life into this. You keep telling me that Doctor Shaw is an obstacle to your freedom or your happiness, but haven't you been happy with me, these last few days? Haven't you felt free?"

Erika held the questions around in her mind, tasting them. From anyone else, she would think them a trap, but Charlotte was unbearably honest with those closest to her. That open regard tested even Erika's bravery, sometimes, but she felt that she owed Charlotte no less.

"I have felt happy, yes. Everything about you makes me happy. Knowing there's more mutants, having you trust me… all of it. But I'm not free. You said how our past makes us, both good and bad memories. With you, that seems it could be true. I…I remember things that I thought I'd locked away forever. My mother, my grandparents, my father and brother, friends at school, life before we had to hide - I mean, we were never really safe, not for as long as I can remember, but before the war started my parents still thought things would be all right. And I felt safe with them."

"Did any of your family survive?"

"No. But I haven't even been able to think about them in a long time."

"Except for your mother. I see her image in your mind often - she looks very kind."

Erika's hands clenched on the steering wheel, but she kept the truck running smoothly. "Everyone else died in, in a great machine of death. I can't even remember individual Nazis, people who turned us in, the men who guarded the camps or the women who tattooed my arm and shaved my head. But Shaw wasn't part of the machine. Shaw had power, and she protected me. She could have protected my mother and instead she chose to murder her."

"And that is unforgiveable."

"Every time I wanted to give up, I thought of Shaw's face. I know exactly what I'm going to do. I can't be free of that until it's done. You can read my mind, if you like… I can't explain this properly in words."

"You're projecting very strongly - I can read what you're telling me and I understand how true it is. I'm not going to try to dissuade you, not at all. I only want you to remember that killing Doctor Shaw will not bring you peace."

"I don't expect peace."

"What do you expect?"

Erika opened her mouth, then closed it again. She didn't know. It had been so long, and she didn't know. "I - when I kill Shaw, will you leave me?"

"No! Erika, of course not." Charlotte leaned up and kissed Erika's cheek, and stroked her hair. "No. I'm worried that you will leave me."

Erika thought about that for a few moments. She wanted to say that she would stay, but she couldn't see past Shaw's death; couldn't even think past the plan to ask Shaw what she needed to ask, then drive that coin right through her skull. Shaw would fall dead, her face terrified and bloody, and…nothing.

Her voice was very small. "I thought when Shaw is dead, I will die too. When the submarine pulled me under the water, I didn't want to let go."

"And now?" Charlotte's voice was barely audible over the rattle of the truck.

"And now I would still die in order to kill Shaw. But I wouldn't die happily."

Charlotte sighed, as if she'd been expecting something else. "Oh, Erika."

They drove the last hour in silence, though Charlotte stayed physically in touch with Erika, leaning on her or at least sitting close enough that their hips bumped. In the last five miles, Charlotte suddenly sat up straight, nearly hitting her head on Erika's jaw.

"Wait - there's a checkpoint!"

Erika slowed but didn't stop. The people at the checkpoint might have spotted them already. "Is there another way around?"

"No, and they've already heard our truck. Stay calm, I'll take care of it."

Erika felt the odd, heavy sensation that meant Charlotte was connecting with her mind. She wanted to ditch the truck and run - all her experience telling her to get moving and start attacking - but she remained still.

*I'm drawing on your memories for a moment, putting together a plausible story. Let me do my part.*

Erika nodded, and rolled the truck slowly up to the checkpoint. There were half-a-dozen men and two dogs in place, and all of them looked too clean to have been there more than a few hours. In that sense, it was good: the general must have arrived recently. It also meant that the guards weren't lulled by routine, and would be alert for anything odd.

"Halt! Show your papers!" yelled the head of the guards, and approached the window with two other men.

Erika showed their passports, which Charlotte could present as the identity cards the guards wanted to see. They read them carefully and returned them, somewhat mollified but still alert.

"What is your business here?"

"My sister and I are delivering fresh food to the dacha," Charlotte replied in Russian, leaning across Erika to smile at the guard.

"We need to check the back of the truck."

*Go, open the truck,* Charlotte nudged Erika, who, despite her misgivings, climbed out and unfastened the wooden latch. Erika eyed the dogs warily - they were big German Shepherds, and there was very little metal on them. One of the dog handlers came to the back of the truck with her, and she tried not to edge away. She had no idea what the guards saw, but they seemed to be satisfied, and she leaned up to close the truck again when she felt one of the dogs right behind her. The metal parts of its collar were clear in her mind, but if she pulled it away by the neck, the guards would certainly notice. The only action Erika could think of was to force the animal away, and she couldn't do that, so she froze.

*Charlotte!*

*I'm making the guard move the dog away now. Calm your mind, Erika. Let me take care of it.*

Erika waited, and the dog and handler walked over to their companions. She could feel the sweat rolling down her neck and dampening her hair.

"Scared of dogs, hey?" one of the guards called to her, and she managed a brief nod. "Pasha's not going to hurt you. Get in your truck, you're clear to go."

Erika took several rapid breaths and steeled herself. She walked without hesitation past the dogs and climbed back into the truck, though it was a great relief to slam the door shut and touch her hip to Charlotte's.

*I'm sorry, Erika, you didn't tell me you were scared of dogs.*

*I'm not scared. I'm wary. They carry less metal than people so they're harder to fend off. And they keep fighting until they're dead.*

Charlotte gently pressed her hand over the bite scar just above Erika's knee, connected enough to feel what Erika felt. *I didn't realise - I wouldn't have let the guard take the dog near you. I won't again.*

"Thank you," Erika said out loud as they left the checkpoint and drove up a steep hill towards the dacha. Other vehicles had been there not long ago, their tyre tracks fresh and muddy. "Can you control animals, too?"

Charlotte shook her head. "Not directly, no. Their minds are too different. I can startle them, but that's not usually very useful, is it? Oh, wait - I'm picking up minds at the dacha, now. No sign of Shaw or the telepath yet, but everyone is feeling anticipatory, so they must be due shortly."

"How many people are there?"

"I can feel nineteen, including one much older than the others. That must be the general. Two women and one man in the kitchen, otherwise everyone's a soldier. I only checked their memories briefly, but I don't think there's any mutants among them."

Erika laughed, suddenly in a great mood. She hadn't even thought to check for other mutants, but of course they needed to do that now. Today could be the end of it all. She hadn't expected a sunny day and a lover by her side, just the coin that she kept over her heart. It was a good day.

\---

"If you can look like anyone, why do you want to be a girl?" Darwin lounged on Raven's bed next to Angelo, drink in hand. "I mean, I get why a white girl, but wouldn't it be easier to be a guy?"

Angelo, who'd been drinking straight from the bottle, punched her arm. "Yeah, being a guy is all fun and games."

"I don't know," Raven shrugged. "I don't feel like a boy or a girl, really. Dresses are better than pants." Their party had been wandering all over the house, and he wasn't sure how the three of them had ended up here.

Both of them laughed, and Angelo spoke first. "Raven, sweetie, you don't have to be a girl to wear a dress."

"Or a boy to wear pants!" Darwin stuck her denim-clad legs out.

"But dresses are made for women!" Raven demonstrated by exaggerating his breasts and hips. "It's going to look weird on me if I'm a guy."

Angelo stood up and poured Darwin another glass of scotch from the bottle on the dresser. He was very out-of-sorts tonight, but the booze was making him more mellow. "Sometimes I think your sister is cool, and sometimes I think she's squashed all the danger out of you."

"She looks out for me."

"Yeah, exactly. By fitting in and shutting up. She might be a queer, but she's pretty and white and femme. And she wants you to be the same." Angelo's snappishness had returned, as quickly as it had left.

"She lets me be a guy whenever I want." Raven felt extremely defensive of Charlotte, now.

Darwin raised an eyebrow. "She 'lets' you?"

"You know what I mean."

"Yeah." Angelo put down the bottle and took him by the shoulders. "You mean that you're scared. I'm not saying you've got to run around in public as your own blue self."

"You'd start a riot," Darwin smirked. "In the good way."

Angelo gestured drunkenly and grabbed the bottle again. "Shut up, Darwin. I mean, hell, you're not going and buying dresses in a department store, Raven. You're making them yourself. You can make that dress into any damn thing you want. We're not judging."

"Harriet probably is."

"Darwin, you are so not helping!"

Raven frowned, and took a swig from his glass. "No, I think you're right, Angelo. I don't think…I don't think I've worn a dress in my natural form since I was little and Charlotte thought I was a girl. Don't go picking on Harriet, though, okay? This is about me."

"It's all about you, sweetie!" Darwin laughed. "No, it's cool. I'm not going to hassle Harriet. Alex is on that. At least until Harriet beats her at pool."

Raven put the glass back on the dresser, then relaxed and shed his fake skin, rippling into his own blue form. He opened the wardrobe door to see the mirror on the inside, then slowly created a silver-spangled flapper dress that he'd once seen in a photograph of Sharon Xavier's youth. It hung perfectly from his broader shoulders, skimming his chest and hanging loose and fringed at his hips. Angelo and Darwin applauded as he slowly turned around, beads and fringes swishing gently, admiring himself in the mirror.

"Raven, that's amazing! You're so sparkly!" Angelo grinned.

"Looks great with the blue, man."

Turning another full circle, Raven wondered why he'd never thought of this before. He grabbed Angelo's bottle and took a swig. "Cheers!"

Eight hours later, Raven's head hurt, he was naked, and he couldn't feel his right arm. He wanted to look over and see why, but the light was shining through his eyelids and the idea of actually opening an eye was beyond painful. Yes, it had been a great party. No, he didn't feel too great now.

"Rise and shine, people!" Darwin called, to be met only by groans and a plaintive whine from whatever was squashing Raven's arm. He rolled over slightly and poked it. Oh. It was Harriet. Raven could dimly remember luring her off the chandelier by making his shirt vanish and promising kisses.

"Harriet? Get off my arm."

"Ungh," came the reply, but a long moment later, there was movement and Raven reclaimed his arm. It was still numb, though, and blue.

"Seriously, people," Darwin laughed. "You'd think that none of you could, well, adapt to survive a toxin like alcohol."

"Darwin, shut up or I'm going to commit the first mutant-on-mutant homicide," Harriet muttered.

"What if I told you I'd brought everyone water, coffee, and wonderful, wonderful Aspirin?"

Harriet looked up with faint hope in her eyes. "…you're absolved of any crime."

Darwin kindly pulled the curtains and handed around drugs and fluids in the precious dimness. Raven hadn't had a hangover this bad since Charlotte finished her undergraduate degree: he could normally keep up with everyone else and throw it off without too much suffering. Maybe mutants had tougher metabolisms and needed to drink more to get drunk? He cracked an eye open and peered around at the room. By the number of empty bottles lying on the floor, he'd have to promote that theory to scientific fact.

"Gonna puke!" Angelo rasped, and staggered for the bathroom. He'd been angry about something and got blind drunk early, then passed out on the floor. Raven had been sober enough at that stage to remember to check on him, though he couldn't remember when anyone else had keeled over.

Alex was draped over one of the sofas, her legs over the back and her head nearly touching the ground. "Man, that was a good night."

Darwin plopped down beside her and rearranged Alex's floppy limbs, pulling her around until she was the right way up. "You better not have given me some kind of prison cooties."

"No way," Alex laughed, "I was in solitary: I'm the cleanest bitch on the block."

"You say."

Harriet sat up with a groan, and Alex pointed at her.

"Hey, Poindexter! Where did you learn to drink like that?"

"Engineering student parties, women's dorm, MIT. I'm pretty sure we always ran out of alcohol before I actually passed out, though."

Angelo staggered in to get aspirin from Darwin, and Raven thought he'd better join the others in sitting up. "Don't worry - the house budget for booze is pretty much unlimited. We didn't even get into the wine cellar."

"It probably would have been a waste of good wine." Harriet, somehow, was on her feet and heading for the bathroom.

"I worked at a club, and I can tell you that was really, really good scotch you were swilling," Angelo called after her. He seemed a lot more cheerful this morning.

Raven needed to pee desperately, but he wasn't sure about getting up yet. Instead, he tried to restore a modicum of mature adulthood. "Did I tell you that Charlotte called last night? They were in Hamburg and they were fine."

"Oh, that's why you started talking about hamburgers," Darwin smirked. "I was wondering."

"Shut up, you smug sober person. I can't deal with you and a hangover." Harriet wasn't back yet, so Raven got up and staggered to another of the fortunately plentiful bathrooms. Someone must have been using it last night, because there was half a bottle of gin sitting on the sink, but the actual damage seemed to be mostly confined to the TV room and the hall, as far as Raven could see. He peed, and looked out the window to see the cook's car coming up the driveway, bringing all the staff in from town. Damn, it must be almost nine o'clock already: they'd have to start cleaning up fast. Charlotte might not be able to call for a while, but Raven planned to be both sober and in possession of a tidy house when she did.

Raven made himself some clothes then hurried downstairs to say good morning to the cook and grab some plastic trash bags. It seemed that the party had spent some time untidily raiding the pantry and fridge last night.

"Sorry!" he called, before grabbing the trash bags and wobbling upstairs again.

Everyone had gathered in the TV room, where Darwin and Harriet were making an effort to push furniture into place. Angelo swept up the one - and miraculously only - broken bottle, and Alex was supervising from the top of the sofa.

"Trash bags!" Raven handed them around, then heard a weird noise from outside, like the whump of a car's panel being dented by a baseball.

"What was that?" Harriet asked. "There it is again!"

Darwin threw the curtains open, to a general groan, and peered out over the lawn. "I can't see anything weird."

"Shit, I hope I didn't collapse the house yesterday," Alex muttered, looking guilty.

Harriet shook her head. "No, it was from outside. And seriously, Alex, you're not stronger than a nuclear bomb."

"Whatever you say."

The sound came again, this time closer.

"Now, that one was inside the house," Harriet corrected.

Darwin shrieked suddenly, and they all glanced at the window just in time to see a body fall past it. It was the younger of the gardeners and he hit the ground with a dreadful, wet thump.

"Did he fall off the roof? What's going on?" Alex yelled, and they all raced to the window as Darwin heaved it open. The gardener's body lay broken on the gravel path and blood was seeping out into the stones. His head was at a peculiar angle, and so were his limbs.

"I'm going to get the head gardener," Raven decided, and turned for the door.

"I'll call an ambulance!" Darwin added and followed.

They hadn't even got to the door when a big woman with brick-red skin strode in, a thin tail whipping behind her. She was dressed all in black, in something that resembled a military uniform, and held a big, blood-streaked sword in one hand. Raven backed up so quickly that he collided with Darwin and they both staggered into the TV room.

The first woman was followed by another, a pretty, dark-haired girl in an elegant white dress that fluttered around her as if she was caught in a breeze.

"Who are you?" Darwin asked, pulling Alex close. Raven grabbed Harriet, but neither of them could reach Angelo, who was still staring out the window at the corpse of the young gardener. "Angelo, come here!"

A third woman, well-dressed and middle-aged, joined them, and Raven recognised her from the CIA's photos, even under the weird silver helmet she was wearing.

"You're Sabrina Shaw!"

"I am indeed, young man. Don't worry - I haven't come to hurt you." She turned to the woman with the tail. "Where's the telepath?"

"Not here." She had a heavy accent, maybe Russian.

"Ah! Excellent. I won't take this silly thing -" she knocked on the helmet - "off just yet. After all, most of us haven't been introduced." She gestured to the possibly-Russian woman. "This is Azazel, and my other friend here is Riptide. We're here to ask you to join us, to fight for the mutant race rather than hide away here in Charlotte Xavier's mansion."

"What kind of fight?" Darwin asked, cautiously.

"The struggle that is coming as soon as the humans become aware of us. I'm sure that you've already had some experience in the way powerful people treat those they consider lesser than themselves, and those they consider frightening. We are banding together now rather than be hunted down, or made their slaves."

"Why did you kill that man, then?" Raven demanded. "He didn't hurt anyone."

"He got in the way," Azazel replied with a shrug.

"What I'm offering you," Shaw continued, "Is the chance to throw off the false promises of co-operation and secrecy in favour of taking hold of the power that's yours by right. Why hide here when you can live like kings?" She held her hand out, but all Raven could think was that this was the woman who even brave Erika found terrifying.

Much to Raven's horror, Angelo stepped forward. "I don't know about taking power, but you took out that son of a bitch just because you could. And that's good enough for me." He put his hand in Shaw's and Shaw neatly pulled him forward to stand with her other mutants.

"What?" Raven yelled at Angelo. "What did he ever do to you?"

"Cornered me in the garden and told me if I didn't blow him he was going to tell Miss Xavier I was stealing. He thought he could do whatever he wanted to me and I couldn't do a damn thing. This place was supposed to be safe, but it's not safe for me. Nowhere is. We've got to fight back, Darwin."

"You okay?" Darwin asked.

"Yeah. I remembered what Erika said about their minds being confused about our powers, so I flew up and he started staring into space. Doesn't change the fact he thought he was entitled."

"Little Erika made it here? Wonderful!" Shaw laughed.

"She's not here right now - you leave her alone," Raven snapped.

"No-one else coming along? All right, then. Please remember that if you're not with me, you're against me. Our next meeting may not be so pleasant, if you're influenced by the likes of Erika Lehnsherr."

"Wait." Darwin stepped forward. "I didn't know what happened to Angelo until now. I'll come with you."

"No!" Alex shouted, but Darwin gave her a quelling stare.

"Excellent!" Shaw smiled broadly, and took the red-skinned woman's hand. With a repeat of that weird thumping sound, Shaw and his mutants vanished into red smoke, Angelo and Darwin with them.

Raven sat down on the floor and cried.

\---

Erika and Charlotte took up a position at the top of a small rise and looked down over the dacha's manicured lawns and barbed-wire defences. Erika had objected to being this close, but here everyone was within range of Charlotte's powers. Charlotte felt a lot more comfortable this way, and it wasn't as if she was going to let the soldiers spot them on the hill.

*They've just received a radio call,* Charlotte told Erika, fully linked together. *There's a helicopter on the way, ETA 10 minutes.*

*Perfect.*

They'd developed several possible plans, depending on whether or not Shaw travelled with the other mutants - the telepath in particular - but the one thing they hadn't counted on was Shaw not coming at all.

The helicopter landed, and Emory Frost, the telepath, walked out. Charlotte quickly and quietly linked to one of the guards to listen in on the conversation. The first thing out of his mouth was an apology for Shaw's absence; the second was a flirtatious giggle as the general kissed his hand.

*Shaw's not coming,* she told Erika, *But something strange is going on here.*

Erika cursed under her breath, but didn't look as disappointed as Charlotte expected - the closeness of their thoughts let Charlotte see that Erika thought it had been too easy, maybe a trap. Frost's arrival was simply a confirmation that the CIA's intelligence had been unable to keep up with Shaw's movements.

*What kind of strange? Is he affecting the general's mind?"

*The general kissed his hand and helped him up the step to the door, as if he were a woman.*

*Maybe Frost is making him think that he is? A honey trap can't be effective if you bring the wrong kind of honey.*

*Erika, that is a terrible metaphor and I hope you never use it again.* Charlotte looked closer, moving slowly and carefully to avoid alerting Frost. *But you're right - the general thinks he's meeting with Shaw's attractive, young right-hand woman.*

*We need to go in. He's not Shaw, but he can lead us there.*

*I agree - but remember that Frost's probably been hurt by Shaw as badly as you have. Don't kill him.*

*Unless it's necessary to save our lives, I promise I won't kill him.* Erika caught Charlotte's gaze for a moment and Charlotte could see the naked sincerity there. Erika really wouldn't lie to Charlotte.

*I'm going to mostly be occupied shielding us from Frost. You'll have to deal with the guards, okay?*

*Let's go.*

Erika jumped to her feet and sprinted down the hill, her skirt flying around her as she ran at speeds Charlotte didn't have a hope of matching. That was probably for the best - the whole house was already in Charlotte's range anyway, and this way Erika would be the target for any bullets. At least, Charlotte hoped that was a good thing.

As it turned out, no-one managed to fire a bullet. Slowing to a brisk march as she reached her targets, Erika wrapped the first few guards in coils of barbed wire, then dragged the next few to the ground by their own weapons, abruptly thrusting the barrels upwards to hit each man in the face. Then she'd reached the house and vanished inside, though Charlotte could still feel the bright steel of her mind.

Charlotte jogged down to the first set of guards, very glad Erika had persuaded her to wear practical knee-high boots rather than heels, and stopped still. They were very young, these guards, and screaming in pain and terror. Every moment they thrashed in their bonds they pulled the terrible twists of wire further into their skin. Erika had run on without a second thought, but Charlotte couldn't. She put her fingers to her temple.

*Sleep. Forget my face. Forget her face.*

The guards relaxed, blood dripping from their puncture wounds, and the wire stopped biting. Charlotte hurried across the lawn to the house - the two men on the lawn appeared to be all right, just unconscious - and hoped Erika hadn't already reached Emory Frost and the general. She could feel where Erika's mind was in the dacha, but Charlotte had lost a little traction by giving telepathic commands to the guards. Erika's anger and control were clear; her actual actions were less so.

Charlotte hurried in, past more unconscious men with disassembled rifle pieces scattered around them, and nearly slipped in the blood of another man, lying dead in a side corridor with a large knife in his abdomen. She'd never seen anyone die violently - only seen it in people's memories - and the smell was not what she had expected at all. The amount of blood across the floor was quite extraordinary, really. Charlotte felt a little dizzy and walked carefully on, trying not to glance down at her own bloody footprints.

*Erika!* she called, as quietly as she could, hoping not to catch anyone else's attention.

*I'm here, outside the general's door. Come on.* Erika was around the corner, but Charlotte wasn't entirely sure she wanted to see Erika with blood on her hands. She wasn't sure what else to do, though, so she went to her.

Erika had only the tiniest amount of blood on her hand, around her skewed fingernails. Charlotte glanced to the side and saw that Erika had wiped her hand on the curtains, and staggered a little. Erika caught her and hugged her briefly and fiercely.

*Oh, my poor Charlotte, I'm sorry. I didn't know you hadn't seen someone die before.*

*I have. Just not violently. And not killed by you.*

*Are you ready to take down Frost?*

Charlotte took a deep breath and hoped Erika hadn't got blood on Charlotte's dress. *Yes.*

Erika's power wrenched the door open and both of them stopped in sudden shock. The general was on a bed, writhing and moaning, clutching at the air as if he was holding a woman's hips. Frost, in a sleek white suit, sat on a plush sofa nibbling on a cracker with caviar. He jumped to his feet and Erika acted just as quickly, the brass rungs of the bed lashing out at him and dragging him to the floor. Emory switched to the diamond form that Erika and MacTaggert had both described, but Erika held him still despite his struggles. Charlotte blinked: Emory's mind was suddenly invisible to her, as if he wasn't even there.

"What?" The general sat up on the bed, thoroughly confused. "Who?" He came to the obvious conclusion and drew his gun, but Charlotte sent him to sleep as quickly as she had the guards outside.

"Read Frost's mind, Charlotte!"

Charlotte concentrated as hard as she could, but there was nothing. "I can't - when he changed, I completely lost him. He's not affecting us, though."

"Tell us where Shaw is!" Erika shouted at Frost, drawing the coils of the brass bedframe tighter.

"No, wait -" Frost called out, but Erika wouldn't take that for an answer. The coils crushed tighter and there was a terrible cracking noise. Frost changed back to flesh with a scream.

"Erika, stop! That's enough!"

The moment he changed, Erika stopped crushing him, though she still held him captive, and his mind reappeared. Charlotte crouched down to put her fingers to Frost's temple, but before she did, Frost projected to her.

*Wait! I'm not your enemy! I need your help!*

Charlotte spoke out loud for Erika's benefit, not quite game to link them all together in case Frost could use the connection to lash out.

"Why are you here, then?"

"Look in my mind - I'm telling the truth. I am working for Shaw, but she's crazy. She wants the Soviets and the US to blow each other up!"

"What?" Charlotte and Erika spoke together.

"It's true!" Frost projected images. Charlotte blocked Erika from it and used the break in Frost's diamond-hard shields to delve into his brain. A cavalcade of awful images crossed Charlotte's mind: Shaw carefully explaining to Frost what needed to be done in order for nuclear war to begin; a fiery mushroom cloud over Washington; Shaw herself as a benevolent ruler over flocks of mutant children, Erika among them, their powers tiny lights in the smouldering ruins of the world.   
"Oh my God," Charlotte stuttered, and suddenly found herself sitting on the floor.

"Charlotte?" The bonds holding Frost creaked ominously.

"No, no, it's true. Let him go. Emory is terrified of Shaw, but he's more terrified of her plans for the world. He won't betray us."

"Not that I'll be much use to you after 'little Erika' there crushed my neck."

"Don't call me that." Erika uncurled the bedframe from Emory's body, and Emory sat up, rubbing his throat.

"Thank you. Shaw's base is a submarine, so I have no idea exactly where it is right now, but I can tell you where it's going to be in about two weeks."

"Don't try to bargain with us," Erika snapped. "Charlotte can drag the information out of your mind, and if you try to switch to your other form, I will crush you."

Emory flinched, but glared at her anyway. "I don't want to do it, but I can wipe that information faster than your Charlotte can dig it out." He waited for a moment before continuing, and Charlotte could feel him firming up his mental shields. Even so, Charlotte could feel that he was deeply shaken by someone causing damage to a form he assumed was impermeable to anything short of a laser.

Emory cleared his throat. "In retaliation for the missiles in Turkey, the Soviet Union is going to place missiles in Cuba. That man on the bed isn't the only general Shaw has in his pocket, and I'm pretty sure I don't know all of them. America will either set up a blockade in the Atlantic or draw a quarantine line and warn the Soviets not to cross. They might even invade Cuba. Whatever they do, that's where Shaw will be."

"That's more like it." Erika's arms were folded, but she was less on edge. "Now tell us how you managed to persuade Shaw to send you to meet this particular general at the same time that we would be here."

Charlotte stared at Erika and Emory in surprise: she hadn't thought that their meeting and Emory's defection was anything but opportunistic.

Emory turned to Charlotte. "I could feel your mind that night in Miami. I couldn't read it, of course, but I searched the minds of the CIA agents and Coastguard to see if anyone knew about you."

"Agent MacTaggert," Charlotte said. "So you found out who I was, then fed the information about this meeting to him, prompting him to pass it along to us."

"Yes, exactly. It wasn't difficult - MacTaggert really wants to take down Shaw, and he trusts you already. The tricky part was convincing Shaw to let me do this mission alone."

"And how did you accomplish that?" Erika asked, her voice still hard.

Emory looked only at Charlotte. "I had no idea that Erika Lehnsherr would be here, or even if she'd survived attacking the submarine. MacTaggert's mind only had information about you and Raven. I convinced Shaw I could defeat you and your sister, because I thought you'd both be here in Russia.

Charlotte felt a queasy sensation rise in her stomach as she knelt on the floor. "What do you mean?"

"I didn't know you'd leave your sister behind. I kept reading MacTaggert's mind, and when he worked out where you live, I told Shaw. I…he must have known you'd leave Raven behind."

There was a loud cracking sound, and the iron poker by the fireplace struck Emory in the head like a javelin. He'd turned back to diamond just in time, but Erika kept the pressure on, twisting the end of the implement, trying different angles to break Emory's diamond skin.

"Shaw knew about all of them, didn't he?" Erika shouted over the noise of her attack on Emory, her voice loud but horribly level.

"I didn't know! He's hard to read!" Emory tried to crawl away, to no avail.

"No! Erika! It's not his fault!" Charlotte couldn't get up off the floor, weak with horror. Shaw would have Raven. Raven and all the others to whom they'd promised safety. "We have to go home, right now."

The poker slammed into Emory's body a few more times, leaving a crack from his already damaged throat down into his armpit, then it embedded itself into the wall. Erika stalked over to Charlotte and dragged her roughly to her feet.

"Get up, Charlotte. Frost, you're coming with us. Where was that helicopter pilot taking you?"

"Back to an airfield outside Leningrad. There's a private jet waiting to take me to DC, but I don't have any further instructions."

"Will Shaw meet you there?"

Emory shook his head. "No, Azazel will. If she sees you with me, she'll simply teleport away."

"Right. You're going to take us to that jet now." She shook Charlotte, hard, and Charlotte felt her teeth rattle together. "Raven and the others need you. You don't have time to be scared."

"Right. Right, of course." Charlotte grabbed the mind of the pilot and revised his orders so that he would be taking Emory's two guests to the airfield, as well. "Let's go."

As she marched out of the dacha and towards the helicopter, Charlotte walked as if her knees were made of rubber and she would collapse at any moment. Erika had told her not to be scared, though, and Charlotte could not be less than the woman Erika wanted her to be.

It was a tense flight to Leningrad - which the pilot's mind privately and rebelliously called Saint Petersburg - and onto Shaw's private jet. They couldn't verbally speak on the helicopter, but it was no difficulty for Charlotte and Emory to link to each other and Erika.

Emory had been thrown out of school several times - Charlotte had been correct about the reasons involving homosexual behaviour - and his parents had little compunction about letting him go with an old family friend from the Hellfire Club rather than exposing them and his three siblings to further scandal. Shaw had trained his powers with pain and fear, though from Erika's comments it seemed that Shaw worked more slowly and gently when there was a possibility that the mutant she was training could simply walk away. On the other hand, it had taken Emory much, much longer that Erika to realise that Shaw was an evil sadist, binding Emory to her by every means possible. Emory's hands shook when he used her name, and Charlotte clasped his long, elegant hands between her own small ones in an attempt to tell him he was not alone. Erika, on the other side of Emory, offered no such comfort.

None of this came as a great surprise, but Emory had more information for them: Shaw herself was a mutant.

"All that time!" Erika's scream was loud enough to hear over the noise of the helicopter, and the accompanying mental rage was enough for both Charlotte and Emory to lean as far away from her as they could, holding their heads. The metal of the cabin groaned around them for a moment until Erika clenched her fists and controlled herself.

*What is Doctor Shaw's ability?* Charlotte asked Emory, hoping to drag Erika away from anger and back into mission planning. Surely Erika couldn't pass up useful information.

*She can absorb energy - I've seen her absorb bullets, an exploding grenade, punches, nuclear energy… It makes her stronger, much stronger. If she absorbs enough, she can start returning the energy, too. I saw her kill someone with a touch, just after he tried to kill her with a grenade, but she can't usually do that.* Emory showed them the image of an American officer - the man from MacTaggert's original photos - dissolving into light.

Erika pressed her fists into her forehead, trying to hold herself together and not damage the helicopter. *She was never afraid of me. I destroyed everything and she just laughed.* Shaw in a neatly pressed Nazi uniform loomed in their shared link, standing over Erika in a shattered medical lab full of warped saws and ruined drills, blood smeared on a wall.

Emory shivered. *She can be affected telepathically, but it gets harder the more energy she's absorbed. And she's got a strong mind, of course.*

*I understand,* Charlotte replied, reaching across Emory to keep a hand on Erika's knee. *Do you think she'll take our friends with her? Treat them as she did you?*

Emory shook his head. *I can't see how she'd manage so many at once, but I'm sure she'll want a few of them. She's really strict about not harming other mutants, though, so I strongly doubt she'll hurt them unless they give her reason.*

Charlotte thought about his brave sibling and shuddered. Raven wouldn't let Shaw take him or his friends easily, but she could hope that Shaw was so obviously powerful that Raven didn't try a direct fight. She didn't think Harriet would attempt anything, but she didn't know as much about Darwin or Angelo, and Alex looked like a fighter.

*What about the other mutants with Shaw?* she asked, trying to keep her mind busy.

*A few mutants have come and gone - mostly killed - but the ones there right now are some of the most dangerous. Azazel was a soldier and an assassin before we met her: that's why Shaw has so many contacts in the Soviet Union now. And Shaw didn't train her to use her powers: Azazel already knew. She fought the Nazis here at Leningrad and I guess she enjoyed the killing more than she liked serving her country.*

*Or her country decided she knew too much and she used her powers to get out before they killed her,* Erika argued.

*Either way, she's a survivor and a trained fighter. I don't think she knows Shaw's plans, but it would be very difficult to convince her to turn against Shaw without concrete evidence. The other mutant is Jana Quested, but we call her Riptide. She's some weird combination of Spanish and Hungarian and her English is terrible. I have to telepathically translate for her. Her power is to generate whirlwinds.*

*We've seen it in action,* Charlotte noted.

*I don't think Jana's as loyal, but I don't think she's really got anywhere else to go, either. Shaw found her in a DP camp as a teenager, she said, and trained her to use her powers. She's very pretty. Shaw liked that.*

Erika sat up straight, very suddenly, knocking Charlotte's hand away. *Did Shaw want you and Jana to breed?*

Emory shot her a guarded look. *Yes, she did. She was always on about it, saying she wished she'd brought more mutants into the world before she was too old. She tried to persuade Azazel, too, but Azazel thought it was funny and laughed it off. Jana and I, we didn't laugh.*

*Did she force you?*

*Oh, no, not me. But you think she would have forced Jana?*

*Maybe.* Erika retreated into silence, her mind so guarded that it was barely in the telepathic link.

Charlotte got more details out of Emory - locations of some bases, Azazel's huge teleportation range, limitations on Shaw's powers - and she could feel Erika at the edge of the link, listening but silent.

Disappointingly, the pilots of the private plane were, like the helicopter pilot, hired professionals rather than insiders with more knowledge to add to what Emory had given them. They were to fly directly to Paris, refuel and continue to the US. Emory instructed them on the change of plans and they filed a new flight plan for New York rather than Washington without argument.

There was food on the plane - platters of food brought on at the airport - and Erika sat down and ate her way steadily through a large plate of preserved meats, bread and fruit.

"I don't think I can eat - my stomach is flipping upside-down," Charlotte said, sitting down next to her in an attempt to open the lines of communication. She'd had a gin and tonic, but it hadn't helped.

"You should eat while we have time. I don't know about your powers, but mine are weaker if I'm hungry." She handed Charlotte an apple. "Start with this. It will settle your stomach."

Charlotte took the apple and started nibbling at it. "Erika, how did you know to ask Emory that question, about him and Jana?"

"Shaw was fascinated with the idea of a mutant race. I didn't realise she was a mutant, but it makes sense." Erika spoke between bites, completely calm, but her mind closed off to Charlotte. "And it gives her something to plan for. Maybe she's got mutants tucked away in a bunker somewhere so that when she destroys the entire planet she can start again with a fully mutant population."

"That doesn't make any sense, unless she's studied a lot more genetics than I have. Or a lot less, I suppose. All the mutants we know come from non-mutant parents. Are two mutants even fertile together?" Charlotte frowned. "If Jana had a baby, maybe Shaw does have that answer. But she doesn't know about the generation after that. And if she has a hidden population, it can't honestly be large enough to sustain itself, even if there are more female mutants than male. Mutants aren't immune to physical or genetic defects - Harriet's eyesight is terrible, for example."

Erika shrugged, not looking directly at Charlotte. "Shaw is very arrogant. She probably thinks she can make it work through force of will."

That was a dismissal if Charlotte had ever heard one, so she got up and paced nervously instead, all the way to Paris; Emory slept, his hand unconsciously resting at his throat where Erika had damaged his diamond form.

As the plane refuelled in Paris, Charlotte dashed for a phone that could make international calls. Erika called something as she went - probably a warning that she was now leaving Erika alone with a telepath - but Charlotte didn't care. She'd gone through Emory's mind in some detail and, while she wouldn't go so far as to rely on him if Shaw was present, she could tell that he was genuine in his need for protection and had no intention of crossing them.

There was a queue at the first phone Charlotte reached, so she made everyone feel that they had a pressing need to go to the toilet and empty their bladders, skipping herself to the front of the queue. The operator put her through, and Charlotte squirmed with frustration and fear as the phone rang.

"Hello?" It was Raven's voice.

"Raven! Are you all right?"

"Charlotte! Doctor Shaw was here with two of her mutants! She killed the Harris boy, you know, the new gardener."

"Oh, God, Raven, is anyone else hurt?"

Raven suddenly broke into loud, wrenching sobs, and Charlotte felt her heart contract.

"Angelo and Darwin went with Doctor Shaw. She gave us a choice, and they went with her!"

"Raven, I'm so, so sorry. We only just found out that Shaw knew where we lived…"

"You found that out?" Raven coughed and swallowed down his tears. "How?"

"Emory Frost has defected to our side, and we've found out Doctor Shaw's plan. It's insane, Raven, she wants everyone dead in a nuclear war."

"Darwin won't want to kill anyone!"

Charlotte noticed the gap in that statement. "But Angelo would?"

"The gardener who died, he'd been trying to mess with Angelo."

Charlotte rubbed at her eyes, wishing she could just connect with Raven and understand everything. "Have the police been?"

"No, I called an ambulance and said he'd fallen off the roof. The teleporting woman, Azazel, she cut his throat before she dropped him, so I have no idea what they're going to make of that. You have to get back here, Charlotte."

"We've stolen Shaw's jet. It's still going to take another nine or ten hours before we get there, so stay calm. If the police show up before then, pretend you don't know anything."

"Okay, I've got it." Raven was starting to cry again. "Please come home."

\---

"That was Charlotte!" Raven called to the others. "They're fine, Emory Frost is on our side now, and they'll get here late tonight. Thank God."

"About time," Alex muttered. She'd been practicing her energy blasts in the bunker for the last few hours, Harriet monitoring carefully, hopeful that they could harness Alex's ability in case Shaw returned.

Raven stared into the kitchen. "Did you eat that whole pie?"

"Yeah, I'm starving after using my power so much. The cook said it was okay."

Raven flopped into a chair opposite her. "Sure, it's fine, I'm just surprised. Where's Harriet?"

Alex shrugged and burped. "She said she had a brilliant idea and ran off somewhere."

"I told her not to do that! We have to stick together." Raven got up to find Harriet, but Harriet appeared in the doorway.

"Done!" she said, cheerfully. "Now I can start working on a power harness for Alex."

"I don't like the sound of a harness," Alex complained. "Wait, what's 'done'?"

Harriet grabbed a Coke from the fridge and grinned. "I doubt the police here have a competent forensics department, so I set up the accident that killed the gardener. You have tin flashing at the edges of your roof, and that's sharp. I scuffed a few tiles, bent up some of the flashing, added some lightly reconstituted blood from the gravel path, and voila! A nasty accident on the roof."

Alex stole Harriet's Coke. "You make an awesome criminal, McCoy."

Harriet looked at her Coke in Alex's hand for a long moment, then got up to get another one. "That wasn't my intention. It's going to be very difficult to explain what happened otherwise, if the police get here before Charlotte does."

"Good thinking," Raven told her, and she blushed. "But don't go off on your own. For all we know, Shaw's teleporter is ready to pick us off one by one."

Harriet shuddered. "You're right. Besides, I need Alex's help to build a device to channel her powers. Looking over the readings I took this morning, I think I can focus the power on a single point and make it a beam. It would still be just as strong, but you could direct it, Alex."

"Yeah, whatever. Do you have the stuff you need?"

Harriet nodded. "There's lots of parts of Cerebro that we're not currently using, and someone used to have a lot of lab space here. The lab itself is damaged, but the storage room is fine, and there's a lot of equipment there I can adapt."

"That was my step-father's," Raven volunteered. "He was a chemist, and eventually he blew himself up."

"Gross." Alex wrinkled up her nose.

"Yeah, well, I don't miss him, or his daughter. Still, he died saving Charlotte and Kaye - his daughter - from the lab fire, so I guess he wasn't all bad. Just mostly bad."

"Parents, hell with them," Alex muttered.

Harriet gestured with her Coke. "I get along with mine, though they don't really understand what I'm doing. They never said I should stay home and find a husband instead of going to college."

"Yeah, and I bet they told you to always keep your shoes on, too, Bigfoot. At least if you go to college they've got a socially acceptable reason why you're an old maid."

"Shut up, Alex," Raven said, watching Harriet's face fall. "Unless you don't want Harriet to help you with your power."

"No, yeah, sorry."

"Well, that was sincere," Harriet muttered, but when she got up to head for the storeroom, Alex and Raven both went with her to help.

La Guardia airport wasn't all that big, and it wasn't hard for Raven to find out where the private jet from Paris was landing. He, Harriet and Alex had all decided to go together to pick up Charlotte and Erika - and Emory - rather than wait around at the house any longer. They made it to the airport well ahead of time, eager to see the others again. Even Raven had to admit it was good to be out of the house, the house that he'd taken for granted while he was in England: it was sturdy and boring and always there. Now it felt that it could collapse around him at any minute.

Charlotte's mind must have reached out the moment they were on solid ground, because Raven felt her there while they watched the plane still coasting to a halt.

*Raven! Oh, I'm so happy to see you!* She sounded slightly drunk, which was usual for plane travel.

*Me too, twice as happy! Harriet and Alex are here, too, but I brought that big ugly Bentley, so there's plenty of space.*

*Even for Emory?* Charlotte asked

Raven's mental voice was deeply dubious. *Oh, we're on a first name basis, now?*

*He's given us a lot of useful information, Raven, and he's been through some terrible things with Doctor Shaw. Be kind to him?*

*…if you say so.* Raven shrugged.

*Thank you!*

Raven turned to the others. "Charlotte wasn't kidding about bringing Emory Frost with her. She said Frost's been through a lot with Shaw, so we shouldn't pick on him."

"What do you think?" Alex asked, gnawing at a fingernail.

Raven thought about it, hard. He thought about their meeting with Erika, who had seemed so scary, and about the scars on her body. "I think I feel sorry for him, but that doesn't mean I trust him. And if anything he knows can help get Darwin and Angelo back, we can't let that go."

"I agree." Harriet nodded.

"I don't want that lying bastard Angelo back," Alex spat. "He went with Shaw rather than manning up and dealing with shit. You know Darwin just went along to look after him. If Darwin gets hurt, I'll kill Angelo. I mean it."

"Shut up, Alex." Raven was seriously angry, now. "You might not feel bad about it, but Charlotte and I invited Angelo into our home to be safe, and he wasn't. I'm not saying he should have gone with Shaw, but he was scared. People do stupid things when they're scared."

"Yeah, maybe," was all the ground Alex would give.

Charlotte came running into the arrivals lounge and Raven grabbed her and hugged her tight while they babbled comforting nonsense at each other, verbally and telepathically. Erika followed at a more cautious pace, her hand on Emory Frost's upper arm, making his position in the group quite clear.

"Charlotte has told you about Frost?" Erika asked.

"Please, call me Emory."

Harriet responded automatically. "Harriet McCoy, that's Raven Xavier, and this is Alex Summers."

"Enough," Erika snapped. "Where's the car? Harriet, you sit with me as we drive: Frost has told me a few things about the teleporter and I have some ideas about how to stop her."

Harriet's face paled at having to sit by an angry Erika, but her scientific curiosity quickly won out. "Of course! I was thinking about some kind of electrical interference, myself."

Raven and Charlotte followed Erika and Harriet's brisk walk out of the airport to the car, tired Emory struggling slightly keep up with Erika and the firm grip on his arm, and Alex lagging behind to prove how much she didn't care. By the time Raven and Charlotte made it to the big Bentley - which Charlotte argued wasn't ugly, but classic - Erika had the wheel, Harriet was next to her talking about frequencies, and Emory was unceremoniously shoved into the middle of the back seat.

*I'll sit with him,* Raven told Charlotte. *I think he's had enough of you and Erika for the day.*

*He's been injured, too - he had turned into diamond, just as Agent MacTaggert saw, and Erika did some serious damage to his neck and shoulder.*

*But he was a diamond!* Raven argued.

*Apparently not as hardy as an actual diamond. I hope it will heal properly.*

Raven pursed his lips in sympathy - once he'd broken his wrist and it severely hampered his shape-shifting into anyone but a person exactly the same size and shape - and slid in beside Emory.

"Hi. I'm Raven. Charlotte is my sister, but you probably know that."

Emory nodded, and Raven could feel the tension in his body, for all he was trying to look nonchalant. Alex got into the car on the other side of Emory, and Erika drove them away towards Westchester.

"I'm a shape-shifter," Raven told Emory, "But I have a few forms that I like to use most of the time. This is one of them."

"Does it get confusing, being other people? Do you take on their thoughts and actions, or is it really just appearance?"

Raven laughed, pleased to have got some interest out of the man. "Mostly appearance and voice, but I guess as a telepath you'd see how very differently people react to appearances. If I stay in one shape for a while, it does start to affect me."

"Shaw had me projecting the image of a woman when he needed someone important seduced. Someone who wouldn't respond to me as I am, I mean." Emory was watching Raven closely out of the corner of his eye, but Raven just smiled.

Raven laughed. "I didn't think there'd be many generals who were queers."

"You'd be surprised! Not that they think they're queers, of course." Emory was relaxing slightly, at least.

Harriet turned and looked over the seat. "Emory, did Azazel have difficulty teleporting during thunderstorms?"

"If it was close, yes. The rain didn't seem to interfere."

"Thank you - that's very helpful." Harriet looked from Emory to Raven. "I'm glad there's another guy here for you, Raven. It must be strange being the only one, now Angelo's gone."

Raven bit his tongue to stop himself replying in front of anyone, but the words came anyway. "I'm not a boy. I told you and told you, I'm not a boy."

"Sit down, Harriet," Charlotte snapped, and tugged Harriet forward into the front seat again.

"My apologies," Emory told Raven. "I saw your appearance and assumed this is how you preferred to be, among friends, even though you were a woman at the CIA."

Charlotte leaned back to explain. "Emory read MacTaggert's mind - that's how he got us to meet him in Russia." Raven was about to reply when Charlotte suddenly turned to look at Alex. He wasn't sure why until he looked across and saw Alex's face turning bright red, visible even in the dim interior of the car.

"You fuck!" she yelled. "You motherfucking fuck! You told Shaw where we were!" She launched herself at Emory, red sparks flying out around her, and punched Emory in the chest. The angle made it a fairly ineffectual punch, but Emory automatically shifted to diamond form, and there was a horrible cracking noise when Alex's fist hit him.

"Calm your mind!" Charlotte bellowed from the front seat, anything but calmly, and Alex pulled her fist up for another swing. Emory blocked with his arm, then Raven launched himself across Emory's body to catch both Alex's arms. Alex immediately bit his forearm, Raven shrieked and let go, and Emory retreated backwards across the wide seat, flickering between forms.

*Stop!* Charlotte grabbed Alex telepathically and held her still, broadcasting to everyone in the car. Harriet had slid forward until she was nearly in the dashboard, as far away from the fight as she could get; Erika drove on, completely unperturbed, the car humming slightly as she used her powers to hold it steady.

Raven turned around to see if Emory was all right. He was in his diamond form, and the damage to his neck, chest and right shoulder was extensive, little crystals poking out everywhere. He was breathing fast.

"Emory, listen to Charlotte. Calm down. Change back into your regular form or you're going to hurt yourself."

Now that the fight was over, Harriet was staring from the front seat in admiration. "That's very beautiful, Emory. If I can study you, we can encourage everything to grow together."

Charlotte nodded. "Good idea, Harriet. Crystals have very regular structure - it shouldn't be hard to fix."

Emory looked at the pair of them, and shifted. "It sounds as if I'm your latest project. I've never been hurt before, in that form."

Charlotte glanced at Erika, but whatever she was hoping Erika would do or say, it didn't happen. Raven's heart sank: Charlotte had seemed so happy with Erika when they left for Europe.

Charlotte smiled reassuringly at Emory. "I'm sorry, Emory. It's been a very long day and everyone is very worked up. I'm explaining things to Alex now." She also dropped the information into Raven and Harriet's heads: a brief glimpse of Emory's terrible fear of Shaw; the fact that he didn't know anyone would be at the house in Westchester; Emory's parents sending him off with their old family friend, glad to be rid of him.

Raven took Emory's hand. "I'm sorry, too."

"Don't be. You tried to protect me - it's been a while since someone did that." He smiled, slightly, and Raven sat himself squarely between Emory and Alex.

"Okay. And when my sister lets Alex go, just remember we're all on the same side. Deal?"

Emory nodded, Alex relaxed into her seat with a grunt, and the rest of the journey was silent, but for Harriet and Charlotte discussing crystal growth solutions.


	6. Radiation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note: this chapter has specific trigger warnings for rape, sexual assault and torture; eugenics; Holocaust imagery. Spoilery warnings that also apply to this chapter are in the end notes.

Not long before dawn, Erika climbed up into one of the many attics, and found a small suitcase. She took it to her room and packed some of the clothes that she'd bought in New York, nestling her briefcase with the cash and documents inside the bigger case. She and Harriet had used Cerebro to rig up a shield against teleportation and the presence of the shield left Erika with an annoying buzz in her ears. They couldn't guarantee it would work, but after working with Charlotte's theories and Emory's experiences Harriet was fairly certain that the shield would be at least a disorienting annoyance for Azazel. At best - in Harriet's opinion - she wouldn't be able to sense anything or teleport through it at all. At best - in Erika's opinion - Azazel would be scattered into component atoms if she tried.

Erika made her quiet way down the stairs towards the kitchen, then took to the grass to avoid the crunchy gravel paths around the house. The air was cool and crisp before another warm day, and it seemed that every tiny sound she made was vastly amplified. She'd weighed this up in her mind - the speed of retreat via car against the silence of retreat on foot - and decided that since there was no way the car could outrun Charlotte's telepathy, if the sound of the engine or tyres on the gravel woke her, silence was the better option. She made it almost to the gate before Charlotte came running after her, barefoot with her dressing-gown flying around her.

"Erika! Don't go!"

Erika stopped and waited for Charlotte to catch up. It was no use sprinting away, even if Erika was much faster than Charlotte.

Charlotte was staggering a little by the time she reached Erika, and doubled over, holding her side. "Phew, stitch, sorry." She grabbed Erika's arm to straighten up, and Erika managed not to pull her arm away. "I thought you were going to take a car - I was waiting for you to go into the garage."

"What do you want, Charlotte?"

"I want you to stay, of course." Charlotte looked utterly puzzled, rumpled and pretty in the dawn light.

Erika laughed at Charlotte's confusion. "You can make that happen."

"No, I can't."

"You can make me think I want to stay." Erika held herself rigidly, though Charlotte didn't seem to notice, still clinging to her arm.

At that, Charlotte's attention focused, glaring up at Erika. "No, I will not do that. I will never do that to you, my friend. I want you to stay, very much, but I want even more for you to want to stay."

"I don't want to stay."

Charlotte didn't let go of her arm. "That's the thing - you do want to stay. So why won't you?"

Erika dragged her arm free of Charlotte's grip and stepped backward, putting space between them. "Look how much harm I've done. I brought Shaw here. Darwin and Angelo are with her right now, and, since you've read my mind and Frost's, you have a very good idea what she could be doing to them. I shouldn't have brought you into this."

"How much you remember about when Raven and I saved your life in Miami? The two of us were going looking for Shaw, to find more mutants. You know what she would be doing to us if you hadn't warned us off. I blame myself for what happened to Angelo - I didn't even bother to check the staff to see if they would harm men, just women - but he has Darwin with him, and Darwin will take care of him there, just as she did in Brooklyn."

Erika couldn't stop staring at Charlotte. "You really think it will all be fine, don't you? You walked through the blood of a man I killed, you saw what Shaw is planning, and you still think it will be fine."

"No. I think those things are terrible. You murdered someone because you're scared and it was easy. But I also think that it's our responsibility to take terrible things and make them better."

"There are some things that no-one can make better!" Erika threw her suitcase to the ground, furious at the way Charlotte spoke those words.

"You can't bring back your mother, but all this time you've been trying to make something of her death by killing Shaw. Shaw tortured you to make you powerful, and you're turning that power on her. We have the same ideas, you and I - but you've experienced more violence, and that's what you give in return."

"Just make me stay and be done with it!" Erika shouted in Charlotte's face.

Charlotte didn't flinch. "So you don't have to decide? No. You know that all of us together have a better chance of taking down Shaw."

"I know that some of us might die. It's better for me to do it alone than to bring other people into this. To bring you into this."

Charlotte's mouth twitched for a moment as if she was going to laugh, but instead she threw her arms around Erika's neck and kissed her.

Erika was too shocked to push Charlotte away for a moment, but she rallied and shoved her off. "What are you doing?"

Charlotte did laugh, then, her eyes sparkling and her cheeks turning pink. "You darling idiot: you're trying to protect me. I'm not a child, Erika. I've seen horrible, horrible things through other people's minds. I've seen what Shaw did to you. And I still want to stand with you, do you understand? I'm not here with you because I'm stupid and naïve - well, maybe a little naïve - I'm here because you are a good person who deserves help, and Shaw is an evil person who shouldn't be in this world at all."

Erika just stared at her, dumbfounded. She couldn't believe that Charlotte thought she was a good person, after all Charlotte had seen of her, couldn't believe that Charlotte really didn't blame Erika for Shaw coming here. And yet, Charlotte's sincerity shone like the sun, and Erika felt ashamed.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry. Just come back inside, come to bed. You must be exhausted." Charlotte picked up Erika's case and quickly put it down again. "What the hell do you have in there?"

"Passports. Cash. Some clothes. Nazi gold." Erika took the case and started walking towards the house.

"You - why?" Charlotte scrambled after her, staying on the grass to protect her bare feet from the gravel.

"When I'm done, I'll melt off the insignia off the gold and donate it to Israel. There you go, a plan for when Shaw is dead. Happy?"

Charlotte caught up. "Very."

Charlotte took Erika's elbow as they climbed the stairs and directed her to Charlotte's room rather than her own. Erika went without argument: she wanted to see where Charlotte had grown up, suddenly.

Charlotte's bedroom was big and would have been airy if it hadn't been mostly lined with bookcases. Even one of the windows was covered over with shelves.

"I thought you had a library for these," Erika muttered as she sat down on the bed and pulled off her shoes.

"Oh, these are my personal books. The library is the family's books, plus things that various ancestors bought in order to look smart."

Erika looked around the shelves and, indeed, many of them held children's books, or books for teenagers. She even recognised a few from the convent school in Ireland.

Charlotte gently shoved her backwards onto the bed. "Sleep."

Grinning up at Charlotte, Erika said, "Can't. I'm still dressed."

"Let me help you with that." Charlotte knelt on the bed beside Erika and pulled off her turtleneck, running her hands along Erika's ribcage as she did, over her breasts and up to her shoulders. Erika shivered, feeling Charlotte's small hands move from scar to smooth skin and back again without hesitation.

"Are you okay?" Charlotte asked gently, leaning down to kiss Erika, pushing her own untidy curls out of the way with one hand.

"Yes. I like how you touch me." She reached up to touch Charlotte's face, and stroke her back. She unclasped her own bra, floating the coin she kept in it over to the nightstand, and Charlotte helped her take the bra off, sitting up to shrug off her own dressing gown at the same time.

Charlotte was wearing a very old-fashioned nightgown underneath, all cotton and lace, but what Erika had never realised about those modest-looking gowns was that, in the dawn sunlight now pouring through the window, they were almost entirely transparent. The sunlight displayed the lines of Charlotte's body perfectly, tinting everything with rosy warmth. Erika pushed the nightgown up Charlotte's thighs, sliding her hands underneath to touch her warm thighs, her soft, rounded bottom.

"Undo your own pants, my hands are busy," Charlotte muttered, stroking Erika's nipple with one hand, running the other along Erika's side down to the waistband of her pants.

It was easy to unbutton and unzip the pants, even with all the distraction Charlotte was providing, and Erika wriggled backwards, getting completely on the bed and shedding her pants and underwear as she went. She was pretty sure Charlotte was linked to her telepathically, because while one of her hands brushed over Erika's pubic hair, she didn't push things any further. Erika was annoyed with herself - she wanted Charlotte to touch her, very much, but her body pulled away from her touch - but Charlotte's obvious enthusiasm dragged her up from those thoughts to enjoy Charlotte's body instead.

Erika rolled them over, pushing Charlotte down on the bed, her nightgown rucked up around her waist. She was starting to get the idea that Charlotte wasn't fussy about how or where she was touched, as long as she was, so she pushed the soft cotton nightgown up a little further and kissed her way up Charlotte's pale, girlish thighs. She smelled very different to all the men Erika had brought off, and Erika enjoying taking her time exploring Charlotte's folds with her fingers and mouth as Charlotte moaned quietly, sometimes clenching her legs around Erika's shoulders. It was far more difficult to find a rhythm when it was Erika setting the pace rather than someone with their hand in her hair, but again, Charlotte wasn't fussy, and as her orgasm built, Erika could feel her own body responding, despite Charlotte touching Erika only on her shoulders and back, with her calves and feet. Charlotte's hands were spread out wide, softly opening and closing on her pillows, and Erika felt her own toes curling in the same rhythm.

Charlotte suddenly gasped out something incomprehensible, and Erika felt her body clench around itself, as Charlotte's legs tried to squash her head, and both of them collapsed forward, Erika's mouth deliciously salty, her head resting on Charlotte's naked stomach.

"Erika, Erika, never leave me again, please," Charlotte babbled.

Erika didn't reply, but pulled herself up to lie beside Charlotte, naked but not, for once, worried about it. Charlotte rolled onto her side and threw an arm over Erika, and they both drifted into peaceful, sun-warmed sleep.

\---

*Charlotte? Are you awake yet?*

Charlotte groaned and tried to telepathically bat Raven away before realising who it was. *No, leave me alone.*

*You must be really jet-lagged, because it's four in the afternoon. I've managed to keep Alex from punching Emory all day, and I'm exhausted.*

*Where's Alex now?*

*In the bunker, working off some energy to test Harriet's device. It's not going well so far. Emory went back to bed.*

*Okay, we'll get up soon.*

*We? Well done!*

*Oh, shut up, Raven. Erika's a nice girl. Don't scare her.*

*I promise you that I'm more scared of her than she is of me.*

Charlotte laughed and broke the connection. Sometime during the day, she'd drawn a light blanket over herself and Erika, but they'd kicked it free again, and Erika lay asleep on her back, her face turned towards Charlotte, naked except where the blanket lay over her long, sinewy legs.

Most of Erika's scars, at a closer look, weren't from life-threatening injuries. There were small, repeated burns, and neat surgical lines slightly skewed and stretched with time; the dog bite above her knee just visible above the blanket; the number on her arm red and raised as if she'd been scratching at it recently. The only scars that looked really dangerous in themselves were a deep pucker in her right shoulder and a thick, ridged line across her lower abdomen, just above her pubic hair. Charlotte snuggled closer to Erika to think about how lucky she was to have Erika here with her, but the abdominal scar tugged at her memories. She'd seen a scar the same as that, though much flatter and neater, somewhere else.

Charlotte's memory was more efficient that a non-telepath's, and she could ruthlessly plunder her own recollections: the scar had been her mother's. Charlotte hadn't seen it until her mother was dying, in a hospital bed downstairs, full of morphine and finally pain-free. The fresh surgical scar - she'd had ovarian cancer, too advanced for the operation to be successful - had to be kept clean, and it formed an upside-down T-shape with the older scar.

"I didn't know you'd had surgery before," Charlotte had said, gently sponging her drowsy mother's abdomen.

"Not surgery. Birth. It saved your life. I'm glad that with Raven…" she tailed off and Charlotte smoothed over the confusion. The false information that had been implanted almost a decade earlier wasn't entirely holding, but it wouldn't have to for much longer.

"Oh, oh God," Charlotte said, quietly. That was a caesarean section scar on Erika's body. Erika's peculiar questions to Emory about Shaw's interest in breeding, and about Jana being sent away, suddenly made horrible sense.

Erika's eyes fluttered open and she smiled up at Charlotte, who couldn't return the expression.

"What's wrong?" Erika sat up straight, pulling up the blanket. "How long did you let me sleep?"

"Nothing's wrong. I just - Shaw forced you to have a child?"

Erika curled into herself, a coiled spring, but she didn't run. "How did you know that? Was I thinking about it that loudly?"

"Your scar."

"Oh. Yes. It happened twice." Erika's voice was remarkably calm, but her gaze was somewhere else entirely.

"You have two children? How young were you?"

"Thirteen, and then fourteen. And you should say 'had'. I had two children. I saw the first baby die, but Shaw took the second, at the end of the war. That's what I have to ask her when I find her, before I kill her: how did the second baby die?"

"Erika, I'm so sorry." Charlotte desperately held back tears: if Erika could talk about this without emotion, Charlotte could pay her the same respect.

"Do you want to see what happened?" Charlotte must have hesitated, because Erika reached out of her blanket and touched Charlotte's hand. "It's okay. It doesn't hurt me. And you already know what Shaw is like."

With a bravery she didn't feel, Charlotte put her fingers on Erika's temple. Erika leaned into her hand slightly, and Charlotte was in her mind. This part of Erika's memories was entirely devoid of emotional context, which Charlotte found terribly disorienting. Erika must have trained herself to access these memories as little as possible, instead focusing her rage on the moment that her mother was shot. As Charlotte knew from her brief teenage fling with the idea of being a psychiatrist, suppressing memories didn't mean that they were gone. As with all the memories where harm was inflicted on her, Erika had been quite successful at stripping these recollections of emotion; no wonder she wasn't troubled at letting Charlotte see.

Frau Doktor wants Erika to practise killing people, so she locks Erika in the Room - she always thinks of it that way - and sends in men to hurt her. A Jewish prisoner is too weak from hunger for Erika to even need her powers, and he is executed; two other men attack her for their own survival and she manages to fend them off without killing. She's punished for that, and Frau Doktor starts sending in Russian prisoners instead, the strongest and healthiest she can find, and Ukrainian guards who laugh and say that it's good to fuck a girl who's still got meat on her bones. Erika bludgeons them to death, but not before two of them have raped her. The last man breaks her wrist in the fight and she shears his head off with a blade she fashions from the metal of the table. Frau Doktor is pleased, and works on honing Erika's pain and rage with a long list of tortures that all blend together into a long, bland catalogue of pain.

Erika is pregnant, and Frau Doktor is both delighted and angry - she wishes she had thought of this herself and chosen better stock - and the tortures become less directly harmful, more focused on pain. The fingernails and toenails are favourites, and Charlotte tries not to think about Erika's oddly misshapen nails that she covers with nail polish. Erika wants to get rid of the baby rather than have her taken by Frau Doktor - she knows, later, that the baby was a girl and this colours her memories - but she doesn't know how to do it. When she beats herself in the stomach with a metal bar, Frau Doktor somehow manages to find a girl that Erika once knew at school. She has one of the guards bring the girl into The Room and strangle her to death with a leather cord, nothing that Erika can fight. Erika's attempt to abort the baby doesn't work anyway, and she starts talking to her daughter instead - always in German, never Polish, the same as her own mother's last words to her. "Co-operate," her mother was telling her, "The power is theirs, right now," and "Survive." Here, Charlotte picks up flickers of emotion like guttering candles in a dark room, but nothing more.

Erika goes into labour, and this part Charlotte can link to Erika's emotions. It's not despair, not fear, or even anger, as she would have thought, but a clear-headed calm. The deep, grinding pain in Erika's body brings her powers to the forefront, just as Frau Doktor has taught her. She pulls the door from its hinges, drives the guards' rifles up under their chins and into their brains, and staggers out into the night. The pain comes in heavy waves, and Erika's power does the same. A cloud of metal - wire, bullets, knives, scrap - swirls around her, pulsing in and out with her pain, and every bullet that they fire at her just joins the maelstrom. The contractions are too strong for her, though, and she falls to the ground with each one, her body convulsing from her shoulders to her toes. Charlotte was shaking, too, but Erika sat on Charlotte's bed, completely still and calm, her eyes downcast, as if she was remembering nothing at all.

Erika is going straight to the gates, and no-one can stop her. People are running everywhere, both guards and prisoners, as barbed wire from the fences and the nails holding buildings together leap from their housings and surround her with a whirling shield of metal. She slips in the mud and falls again as her legs spasm with the force of her contractions, but each time she loses her footing, more metal surrounds her. She can hear shots but nothing can harm her; guards are throwing building timber and coal briquettes but they bounce off the metal and fall away harmlessly.

Erika falls again, and when she climbs to her feet Frau Doktor is there, inside the shield with her, a nightmare with a hand on Erika's throat, squeezing. Erika only remembered this in flashes, as her oxygen-starved brain gave up consciousness, but Charlotte saw it more clearly: Erika is battering at Schmidt with every piece of steel she has at her command, but there is no effect. Frau Doktor is laughing and Erika is dying.

Erika didn't die, of course, but illness follows. Charlotte wondered if it was to do with overusing her powers, but there is specific, hot pain in her breasts, and Erika is fevered rather than just exhausted. An infection, perhaps. The next clear memory is Frau Doktor walking into the room holding a naked baby girl by her neck. _Anya_ : Erika's mind fills in the child's name, but it is so deeply buried that Charlotte feels ashamed to have overheard it. The baby has bloody diarrhoea all down her little legs. Her face is puffy and bloodied, and her limbs are twitching in Frau Doktor's grip.

"Useless. Useless." Before Charlotte thought to look away, the baby is swung at the wall. Erika doesn't even think of trying to catch her, and the baby girl is dead by the time she slides to the floor, blood and brains covering her tiny head and mingling with her soft dark hair.

Charlotte pulled away from Erika's mind. "Erika, I can't. You were a child yourself. I can't watch."

Erika grabbed both her wrists. "I could." Her voice is as flat and calm as ever, and Charlotte tried to pull away. Erika was far too strong, though - Charlotte stared at the burgundy nail polish on Erika's misshapen nails - and didn't let go. "If you can't bear to see any more, I will tell you. This is part of the good person you think I am." *This is how I survived,* her mind echoed behind her words, *Frau Doktor gave me a chance and I took it.*

Charlotte wanted to say no, but Erika's eyes had emotion in them again - though what emotion, Charlotte couldn't say - and instead she nodded.

"I don't know how Schmidt knew, but she said the child was not a mutant. She dosed the child with radium, but whatever she was trying to do failed. For some reason she decided that this was not the fault of my bloodline, but of her own failure to control for the father of the child. As soon as I was well enough to eat solid food again, Schmidt brought another prisoner. His name was Marcel."

Erika pronounced it "Mar-tsel" and Charlotte can see him clearly in Erika's memory. Another starving teenager, dark haired and dark skinned, with a tattoo that started with Z.

"A gypsy? Was he like us?" Charlotte realised there were tears on her face, but Erika ignored them.

"I didn't think so until I found out there were more mutants, and our powers were all different. Now, I don't know if he was or not. He was Romani and had a reputation for being very lucky. I laughed at him, but he shrugged and told me that he was still alive, wasn't he? The rest of the gypsies had been exterminated, but he'd got into the Jewish section until Schmidt found him. He never explained how.

"Marcel was kind to me, and I think Frau Doktor kept him alive even after I was pregnant again because she knew it was easier to control me when I was worried about someone else. We both had food, we could speak freely in Polish because Schmidt's Polish was terrible., We planned to escape and meet up in Vinnica - the Russians call it Vinnytsia - in the Soviet Union. We both had family there before the war, and there were rumours that the Americans were in Europe now and attacking the Nazis from the West as the Soviets fought them in the East. We both agreed to try to save the baby if we could."

This time with Marcel was at least slightly attached to Erika's emotions, a little warmth at the memory of the Romani boy and the way they would sleep in the corner of The Room together in that last winter. It quickly shut down again, though, and Charlotte was left reaching for something, anything, in Erika's terrible blankness.

"This time, Frau Doktor decided to remove the baby surgically so that I wouldn't have the chance to escape. When I woke up, I was alone in The Room and bleeding all over the floor. There were stitches, but I suppose they weren't enough. I made the bleeding stop - I clotted the blood and I wish I could remember how exactly I did it - but I was too feeble to get out of there. There was water, but no food, and the door was still barred with a wooden beam. I was still trapped when the Russians arrived, and fortunately I was too weak to fight them and give myself away. I don't know how long it was, but Schmidt was gone with the rest of the Nazis. So was the child, and Marcel."

Erika loosened her grip on Charlotte's wrists, leaving painful red handprints behind. She looked at the injury she had caused, and folded her hands in her lap. Charlotte knew she had no right to ask anything from Erika, but nonetheless she couldn't bear the sudden lack of contact - any contact, mental or physical - and threw herself on Erika, climbing on her lap, hugging her and kissing her face and hair. Erika sat still, the blanket between them, but after a moment, one of her hands stroked Charlotte's back.

"Did you ever find them? The child, I mean, or Marcel?"

Erika's voice was slightly muffled by Charlotte's shoulder, but she didn't turn her face aside. "No. I made it to Vinnica late in 1946, but all my relatives there had been killed. I found one of Marcel's cousins but she was the only survivor from her family. If Marcel and the child were with Schmidt, I doubt she let them live. If they weren't with Schmidt, I don't see how they could have survived."

"Luck, maybe? If Marcel really did have a mutant power?"

Erika shrugged. "I don't think so. When I meet Schmidt - Shaw - I am going to ask her what happened to the child. And then I am going to kill her."

Charlotte buried her face in Erika's soft, wavy hair, because there's nothing that she could say. All her talk of making Erika hold on to a future, to plan things beyond Shaw's death, seem facile, now. She felt far more naïve for having told Erika that she wasn't. Even so, Charlotte needs to be that future for Erika, because she can't be her past.

\---

Later that night, Charlotte pulled herself away from Erika's warm arms, astonished that Erika could sleep again, because Charlotte certainly couldn't. She put on her dressing gown and slippers and crept away downstairs. Something that Erika said was itching at her brain - not the telepathic part but the part that earned her a PhD - and she was sure there was something in the library that she needed to find. She went to her father's papers, all professionally bound and displayed by her grieving mother, and flicked through the abstracts, looking for something she only vaguely remembered.

By the time Erika had given up waiting for her return and come downstairs to find her, Charlotte had her father's personal diaries spread out on the floor and was lying on the rug flipping from one to the next.

"I can hear your mind buzzing," Erika muttered and sat down at the edge of the rug. She was wearing a tracksuit and her feet were bare, but she didn't seem cold. "What are you looking for?" Charlotte was surprised to see that she was a lot more relaxed than before, even though Charlotte had seen more of her secrets. More than anything else, Charlotte could feel Erika's relief at telling someone..

Charlotte looked up at her with an unfocused smile because most of her mind was still on what she was reading. "Radium. Well, radioactive exposure, at any rate."

Erika picked one up, examining the spine and nameplate. "In your father's journals?"

Charlotte rolled over and rested the book on her chest. "And my step-father's. They both worked on the Manhattan Project. My father brought my mother and I back from London when the war started, but we didn't see him very much because of his top-secret work. I'm sure that I felt him think something about this, though, about radioactivity changing people."

Erika was on her feet, her mind a plummeting pit of despair: _it was a trap all along, not Charlotte, no_. "Your father experimented on people?"

"No!" Charlotte jumped up, too, showering books everywhere. "No, darling, wait." Erika gave Charlotte a moment before she ran or fought, more time than she'd ever given anyone, and Charlotte gratefully took it. "No experiments on people. They were working fast, and sometimes carelessly, and most of them had been around radiation in their labs for years. My father died of acute radiation poisoning, and cancer took my mother a few years later." She flashed Erika an image of her mother, lying in a giant hospital bed in the parlour, her two children holding her hands. Raven is blue in her presence, finally, and Charlotte is ready to ease the pain, but the morphine is doing its work without her help and Sharon breathes out one last time.

"So?" Erika's eyes were narrow, but that's better than the way she felt a moment ago.

Charlotte proceeded cautiously. "So, my father noticed that some of the younger staff who were exposed didn't get sick, or not very. Instead, strange things happened. Same for a few of the soldiers who were exposed to some of the test sites, and people living downwind." She located the book that had been resting on her chest. "Listen: _Today Doctor A reported that a local rancher had brought in his young son, aged four years and six months. The boy had spontaneously grown a long tail and gills, however, this did not enable the boy to respire underwater. My colleague dissuaded the man from further underwater experimentation and recommended him to a surgeon._ "

Erika was listening intently, now. "So you think that both Schmidt and your father stumbled onto the same idea?"

"More than that - I just have to find the right volume, if he wrote it down at all."

Erika peered at Brian Xavier's tiny, impenetrable scrawl and pushed the book she was holding into Charlotte's hands. "You read. I'll get coffee."

Before the sun was up, Charlotte had found references to _German work before the war: I wish I had my library_ and _Munich University?_ and Erika had combed the shelves to find Dr K Schmidt's short paper from 1938, on the unpredictable effects of radiation exposure on a small subgroup of factory workers who had acquired radiation sickness.

Charlotte shut the book with a snap. "Erika, I know what she's planning."

"But it didn't work -" _on Anya_ "- when I saw her try it."

"No, we don't understand how or if these mutations are inherited, but based on the theory of evolution, you'd think -" Charlotte stopped as something in the light globe directly above her head pinged and the light went out. "Sorry. I'll stay on track. I mean, even in her own paper, Shaw is only working with a tiny sub-population of all the workers who were exposed. Instead of testing people one at a time, she's going to irradiate everyone and let nature sort it out."

"So everyone who could be a mutant, will be, and everyone else will die of radiation poisoning?" Erika's voice was flat, still, but much calmer.

"Well, if this were being done scientifically, with small doses of radiation, largely on children and adolescents, that would be the most probable outcome. But instead, we're going to see just about everyone in or near the strike zones - the US, Russia, all of Europe, the Middle East - wiped out. The rest of the world has a small chance to mutate in time to avoid death. There's no way Shaw can control the dosage of radioactivity or the location of the strike zones."

"Not to mention infrastructure, farms, mutants who can't develop something that protects them…" Erika threw her arms around Charlotte and squeezed her so tightly that Charlotte let out an embarrassing squeak of surprise. "I understand. We have to stop Shaw's plan, as well as Shaw personally. Together."

Charlotte opened her mouth to speak, but Erika took the opportunity to lean down and kiss her, bruisingly hard, and then there was nothing in Charlotte's mind but Erika.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for: forced pregnancy and birth, medical torture and murder of an infant.


	7. Satellite

Raven was pleased to see Erika and Charlotte at the breakfast table in the morning, especially as they'd made pancakes for everyone. Yesterday Raven had been in charge of meals while Erika and Charlotte were hidden away in Charlotte's room. He was bored of everyone's complaints already, even if he knew that the real problem was that everyone was upset by the loss of Darwin and Angelo and the acquisition of Emory Frost.

"Cerebro indicated two more mutants near here, close together." Charlotte announced at the breakfast table. "We should go to find them."

*Not if you're leaving me on my own with them!* Raven thought at Charlotte, glaring.

Charlotte caught his eye and went on. "Harriet and Erika have built a shield against teleportation, but we can't test it, of course. I think it would be best if we stayed together as a group as much as possible."

"Is Shaw coming back?" Alex asked, bluntly.

Erika poured some more coffee. "Frost was valuable, but Shaw's plans are coming to fruition soon. She might not have time to risk a fight, guessing that Frost has told us everything and we'll meet her in Cuba anyway."

"You could call me Emory," Emory suggested, but Erika ignored him.

"What we need to do now is to train our powers so that we are ready to face Shaw and the other mutants in Cuba. She'll be doing everything she can to make the Americans and Russians fire on each other and so destroy the world."

Alex scoffed. "Does she really think mutants can survive a nuclear war?"

"Darwin probably could, and Shaw. Maybe even you, depending on how your energy blasts are generated. She does have some reason to assume it's possible."

"Unfortunately," Charlotte interrupted, "Her scientific skills are completely in service to her ideology. Wishing it so doesn't make the evidence appear."

"I wish!" Harriet laughed. No-one but Charlotte laughed with her, and she shut up.

"Charlotte can make a pilot take us to Cuba, so we don't need to worry about that yet," Erika said in the silence. "Our first priorities should be controlling Alex's power."

"And fixing Emory," Harriet added, at which Erika frowned.

Raven could see another big argument on its way, so he stood up and noisily pushed his chair away from the table. "Right then, so Charlotte and I will find these last two mutants, Harriet and Emory can work on his diamond skin, and Erika can re-wire that chest plate so Alex doesn't overload it in five seconds. It was starting to work yesterday, but couldn't channel enough force."

Erika looked sideways at Raven, but everyone else seemed enthusiastic at their new directions.

"Come on, Raven, be a girl today," Charlotte called out, "We can take the convertible and wear scarves! The weather's perfect."

Raven shrugged, then rippled into his familiar female body, tall and curvy, with a floral scarf covering her hair. "The Xavier sisters ride again?" He didn't look at Harriet while he spoke, but when he sneaked a glance, Harriet was talking to Emory and not paying Raven's choice of sex any attention at all.

Out in the car with Charlotte, the breeze blowing over them, Raven felt much less put-upon. Raven was driving as usual - Charlotte could drive, but was easily distracted and preferred being the passenger - and they flew along the familiar roads south to White Plains. Raven had taught himself to drive early, bumping an older car around the lawn, and would happily shape-shift into an adult to drive Charlotte around in their early teens, before they went to school in England to avoid Kurt and Kaye.

"Hey, Charlotte, remember when I shifted into Mrs Parkes to get us into the drive-in, then she and her husband pulled up in the next car?"

"I remember wiping her mind so quickly that she fell asleep for the whole movie and drooled on Mr Parkes' shoulder!" Charlotte threw Raven the image and they both laughed giddily, the wind whipping away their voices. "Isn't it weird being here, and it's not for a funeral? I feel like I'm fifteen again."

"You were still dating boys when you were fifteen."

"Well, you hadn't hit puberty yet and you thought all dating was disgusting."

"I didn't hit puberty until I was twenty, be fair! Harriet said my cells are different, and that's why I age so slowly."

"Is everything okay with Harriet?" Charlotte tied her scarf more firmly and tucked the ends under to stop them flicking her in the face.

Raven frowned. "Harriet wants someone to approve of her. A guy. It's not even romantic. I don't know. Erika goes on about being proud of who you are, but that's scary to Harriet."

"To everyone! Erika doesn't give a lot of leeway. She's been through a lot."

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean it's your responsibility to fix her, Charlotte."

Charlotte flickered anger in Raven's direction, but Raven was well-practiced at picking up on Charlotte's emotional states, and could tell the anger wasn't directed at him.

"She's…I love her, but she scares me, Raven. Not because she would hurt me, don't worry, but because she's letting me inside that big scary shell, a little bit, and it's so easy to hurt her."

Raven put a hand on Charlotte's. "Charlotte, if anyone can make her feel safe and loved, it's you. I know that."

Charlotte held his hand, quietly, until Raven needed to change gears again, then said, "Thank you."

"You're welcome. Now, don't run off to spend all day in bed with her while I have to babysit everyone else, okay?"

The two remaining mutants were close together, in an Irish Catholic area of White Plains. Once they got close to the area where Cerebro had spotted them, Charlotte had no trouble picking up the first of them.

"I think we're going to bring another one home, Raven. Shannon Cassidy is a very worried girl."

"Give me directions, Charlotte! You're waving your hands around and that's not helping."

"Oh, sorry. Take the next left and we'll end up outside a girls' high school."

"She's in high school? Are you sure we should tell her?"

"She's seventeen, like Angelo. And before you say anything, at least we know how to protect girls."

"I wasn't saying anything. I was right there, Charlotte, and I didn't help him."

They drove around the corner and up a block in silence, to Maria Regina High School: a very new-looking school in low brick buildings with big windows, quite unlike any of the schools Charlotte or Raven had attended, though they had mostly received private tuition while in America. Charlotte sent a telepathic tendril out to speak to Shannon, linking Raven in, too.

*Hello, Shannon. My name's Charlotte and I have special powers, too. That's how I'm speaking to you. No-one else can hear us.*

Raven felt Shannon startle, then slide down in her desk, for which she was far too tall.

*I'm Raven, I'm here with Charlotte. She's letting me speak to you, too. If you want to talk to us, just think the words.*

After the initial shock, Shannon rallied quickly. *Wow, that's groovy! I thought we were just freaks!*

*Who is 'we', Shannon? Do you know the other mutant? A mutant is the word for what we are.* Charlotte looked terribly excited.

*Uh, yeah, it's my little cousin, Tommie. She talks to trees, and we all thought she was a bit damaged, but she can make wood move like clay in art class, you know? Make shapes and stuff, and it doesn't hurt the tree.*

"Two related mutants!" Charlotte said to Raven, thrilled. *Does anyone know about you or Tommie?*

*Well, everyone knows Tommie talks to trees, I guess, but no-one knows about me except Father Delaney.* With that, Shannon burst into tears and there was a whirl of activity on the other end of the connection while she got permission to go to the bathroom and ran down the hall, sobbing.

*Shannon? If you want to talk in person, we're in a car out by the south fence.*

*Okay, I'm coming.*

A tall, skinny girl ran out of the building and towards them. She had bright red hair, was covered in freckles and wore a school uniform with a skirt that had to be shorter than regulations allowed. Raven had once been given two hundred lines for a too-short skirt that was at least two inches closer to his knees than Shannon's.

Shannon leaned on the door, her face still tear-streaked but with a bright smile. "Hi! I'm Shannon! Oh, you know that already because you can read my mind! Can you read anyone's mind?"

"Yes, I can. Some people are easier to read than others, though. You're nice and clear, like good TV reception."

"Thanks! So, if someone was, you know, in the family way, could you tell?"

Charlotte stared at her for a moment, then burst out laughing. "Shannon, you can't be having a baby. You've never had sex!"

Shannon blushed bright red, brighter than Charlotte had ever managed, and Raven stared in fascination at her colouring. That was one he really wanted to learn.

"I have! I told Father Delaney why I couldn't be in choir anymore and he said he'd tell my mother about it unless I did it with him!"

"So what did you do?" Charlotte had stopped laughing now, and was staring at her closely.

Shannon blushed even harder. "I, um, put his thing in my mouth. And a girl in eleventh grade, that's how she got in trouble!"

"I promise that's not true," Raven told her. "People probably told you that because they don't know, either."

"You don't want to be here, do you?" Charlotte asked.

"He's always watching me, Father Delaney, I mean. And I didn't even want to be at school this year. I had a job lined up at the aquarium and everything, but my mom said the uniform made me look like a slut."

"Would you be interested in coming to stay with us and some other mutants? I can't promise you that it's safe - we're fighting with another mutant who wants to hurt people, but there's no guarantee she won't come looking for you anyway."

Shannon looked thrilled. "Can you convince my mom? The only reason I didn't tell her was because Father Delaney made it sound like what I did was bad. But if he's just a sketchy old guy with a thing for high-school girls, I don't even care."

"With telepathy, I can convince anyone of anything. As for your cousin, she's probably too young to pull away from her family, but we can certainly make sure she's safe and has our number to call if anyone threatens her."

Shannon opened the door and jumped in beside Charlotte. "Done! And don't worry about me fighting anyone. Last year, Mary Beth Kiernan picked on Tommie, so I beat her up, and she's twice as big as me."

Raven pulled out from the kerb. "Well, with mutant powers it's not always about who's the biggest, but that's a good attitude!"

Shannon's mother was busy enough to be easily persuaded that her daughter had got a job with board in an old lady's house upstate in Salem Centre, and she was pleased enough with the news that she helped Shannon pack, and sent her off with five dollars to spend on new clothes.

They took another spin past the high school and the nearby middle school before they left, dropping Charlotte's phone number into Tommie's head as she sat under a tree in the playground, gently patting the trunk.

*She's dealing with her powers well,* Charlotte told Raven, *But if there was no immediate danger from Shaw, do you think it would be a good idea to invite children like her to the house? We could set it up like a school, so children could stay there if they're in trouble, and visit if they're not, and they won't have to grow up by themselves. They'll have us!*

*Charlotte, that is a brilliant idea! We can teach them about their powers, and let them stay if they're blue or have wings or otherwise look weird.*

*And once Cerebro is finished, we can find them anywhere!*

*I hope so.*

"Are you talking to each other in your heads?" Shannon asked, looking thrilled at the possibility.

*Yes, we are,* Charlotte replied, making her grin. *And I can tell you that Father Delaney won't be bothering any more girls. Or boys. He'll just be getting an intense urge to pray, instead.*

"Ha! Man, I wish I was a telepath!" Shannon groaned, but looked delighted. "I'd fix everything! That guy was a creep and he smelled."

"It's not really that easy, most of the time, but when it is, I have to admit it's pretty good," Charlotte smiled. "So, what do you do, Shannon?"

"I can't show you here, but I can, um, you know how I said I had to quit choir? It's because when I sing, it breaks things, and makes people fall over. I'll be just singing along normally, then all of a sudden I hit a note, not even one particular note, and the windows shatter!"

"We have lots of windows which you are very welcome to break," Raven promised, to a punch in the thigh from Charlotte.

"Ignore him, and try not to break all the windows. If you break one by accident, though, don't worry about it."

"Him?" Shannon looked utterly confused.

"Too long to explain, just watch." Raven shifted into his blonde male form, then into Shannon, then Charlotte, then to his female form again.

"Whoa! Cool! Is that what I look like? Weird!"

Raven laughed. *Okay, Charlotte, you totally win. It's fun to be with other mutants!*

 

\---

Erika greatly admired the chest plate that Harriet had constructed for Alex. It was a magnificent piece of ad hoc engineering, channelling the energy that Alex's body created and focusing it into a single beam. Unfortunately, the electronic components that Harriet had on hand were meant for finer work with Cerebro, not the heavy loads needed here.

"We'll need more wire," Erika told Alex. "Not all of the outbuildings are connected to the main house these days, but I could see where they used to have power. We should be able to rip out some of the old wiring there."

"Cool. Let's go vandalise the place."

They went out to the old stables. When she'd been making herself familiar with this new territory, Erika had spotted a distributor with no feeder cable. The stables were neatly kept, but obviously hadn't been used for a long time, and all the light bulbs had been removed. Whoever had installed the lights, though, had run the cables along the exposed beams rather than inside the walls, and that made things easy for Erika.

"I'll pull out the metal loops holding the wires to the wall, you pull the wires free where they cross over the beams."

Alex looked dubious. "You're sure there's no power? I don't want to get zapped."

"My ability lets me see electrical currents and the only current here is in our bodies." Erika started pulling out the wire staples, and Alex picked up the insulated cord with only minor hesitation.

"Can you knock people out by zapping their brains? That would be cool."

Erika paused. "Honestly, I've never tried. That's a good idea. It's something I could practice on animals, too. Though it's easier for me to increase electromagnetic activity than reduce it."

"So increase it, give them a fit. There was this kid at the Girls' Home where I lived, and she had epilepsy. They said it was too much activity in her brain, so she wasn't even allowed to watch TV."

"Too much activity and they're incapacitated. It's a good idea."

Alex climbed up on top of a stall to free some tangled wire. "This is stuck around a nail, can you get it?"

Erika floated it free. "You've had a lot more experience defending yourself than the others."

"I guess so."

"Will you help me train them so they don't get killed by Shaw's people? Mutant powers are all very well, but without practising, they're just as likely to freeze up."

Alex grimaced. "Yeah, I know what you mean. I don't want to use my powers on someone and kill them, but if I get mad enough, they start up on their own. So I learned to put people down fast."

"Yes, my powers tend to do the same." They brought down more wire: Alex climbed up to the beams to free snags and Erika lifted the copper free of the staples and coiling it neatly on the floor.

Erika looked at their collection of wire. "I'm not an engineer, but I think Harriet should be able to step down your power by running it through extra coils - the more resistance there is, the less your output will be."

"Sounds pretty engineer-like to me! And yeah, I'll help you with some training. Harriet freezes up if you even look at her funny - we can't put her up against Shaw's people."

"Agreed."

It took most of the morning to reassemble Harriet's device in more durable form. The wire parts of the construction were simple, but the array of transistors was precisely calibrated to Alex's power and Erika didn't have a lot of experience working with this new technology. She and Alex companionably discussed possible training techniques until they were done: Alex had never had formal training, but had lifted weights in prison and had a lot more hand-to-hand unarmed combat experience than Erika; Erika was more comfortable around knives and guns, but had also had formal training from the Mossad.

"There," Erika said, wrapping the last piece of wire into place and holding the circular device out to Alex. "I've tested the connections, but we need Harriet to review it before we use it with your power."

"Hell, yeah. It would suck if it controlled my power by zapping it backwards or something."

Erika shrugged. "Would it even hurt you?"

Alex pointed to one of the scars on Erika's arm. "Metal can hurt you. I know it's not the same, but I don't want to mess around."

"Fair enough."

They headed upstairs to find Harriet and Emory, who were in the room with the billiards table. Emory was lying on it, in diamond form, while Harriet leaned over him with a pair of tweezers.

"What are you doing?" Erika snapped, immediately angry at herself for leaving impressionable Harriet alone with Emory Frost.

The look Harriet turned on Erika was far closer to scorn than wide-eyed enthusiasm. "You two did a lot of damage to Emory's diamond form. I'm mending it with Super Glue, but I have to get the crystals in the right place." She turned back to Emory and gently twisted a shard of diamond around until it lay flat again.

"Isn't the glue going to mess him up when he changes back?" Alex leaned over the table, checking out the damage to his neck and shoulder.

"Now you're concerned?" Emory asked, with an arch of one diamond eyebrow. "Harriet told me that you can use this glue in surgery, so it should be fine. At least the broken diamonds didn't turn necrotic."

Harriet's usual expression of immense curiosity returned instantly. "I know! It makes me wonder what happened to the diamond shards that were removed completely. I'm growing more in the second storey bathroom - don't worry, there's a sign on the door - so I just pinched one off to use as a starter."

"How long will it take to grow more?" Erika was fascinated despite herself. Emory's changed form was so far beyond human.

Harriet shook her head and manoeuvred another tiny piece into place. "Give me 24 hours or so and I should be able to measure the growth rate. There's at least eight cubic centimetres missing from Emory's shoulder joint, though, so it might not be fast."

"And we don't know yet if they'll be the right shape," Emory added. "Apparently, joints are complicated. Just go for a gut shot next time, okay?"

"Deal," Alex replied, though Erika said nothing.

"Oh, I think that's Charlotte's car!" Harriet said, tilting her head slightly. Erika couldn't hear anything, but reached out with her metal sense and indeed, the gates were open and the car had returned.

*Charlotte?* she projected as hard as she could.

*Hello, darling! You're shouting!*

*Relieved to see you. Did you find the other mutants?* It was true: Erika was ridiculously relieved to know Charlotte was back safely. It wasn't even for a logical reasonbut simply that her heart hurt that Charlotte wasn't there. It was foolish, considering that soon they would be fighting and Charlotte would have to look after herself, but Erika couldn't stop the unfamiliar feeling from welling up within her.

*Oh, the feeling is entirely mutual, Erika! Yes, we have another mutant here and she's very eager to meet everyone. Come down!*

Erika felt the car pull in to the garage. "Come on," she said to the others, "Charlotte and Raven have brought another mutant."

The mutant, it turned out, was a knobbly-kneed high school girl named Shannon Cassidy, who was entirely eager to demonstrate what she could do. They all shuffled out onto the manicured lawn behind the house, though Raven ducked into the kitchen and picked up some wine glasses first. He balanced them on top of a stone seat, then ran back behind Shannon with the others. Shannon screwed up her face in concentration.

"She breaks wine glasses?" Erika asked Charlotte, who had linked her arm with Erika's. "Shaw will be terrified."

"Oh, no, Erika, wine glasses are just the start."

Shannon gave a brief, ear-splitting shriek, and the glasses exploded. Everyone doubled over, wincing and covering their ears.

Shannon turned back to the group. "And that's why I left choir!" Her huge grin suddenly faded. "Oh, man, sorry, I broke some of your windows just like I said I would. Is it really okay?"

Everyone turned to look, and indeed, the four closest windows on the ground floor had smashed and fallen into the house. Charlotte dashed over to Shannon, her smile as wide as Shannon's had been. "Of course it's okay! Your power is amazing! I bet we can break all kinds of things!"

"Yeah!" Shannon punched the air, and Harriet and Alex approached, too, though Emory hung back and Erika stayed there too, keeping an eye on him.

"Nice work," Alex said, punching her arm. "I'm Alex, this is Harriet, and that's Erika and Emory over there, sulking."

"What an amazing power! I'm sure we'll be able to adapt it now that you have somewhere to practise," Harriet babbled before Erika could protest about being called a sulk. "If the sound waves are powerful enough, you might even be able to fly!"

"No way!" Shannon was all but jumping up and down in excitement. "I could fly? Wow!"

Raven had disappeared inside the house and now returned. "Lunch is ready, everyone, come inside."

Erika nodded to him and followed Emory into the house. She was starting to think that they might, after all, have some chance against Shaw's people, if not Shaw herself. And Shaw herself was Erika's job.

\---

Charlotte was thrilled with the way training was going. In one afternoon, Alex had learned to use Harriet's device to focus her power into a single blast, even if she couldn't really direct it yet. Shannon had managed to use her power on Erika to knock her backwards: Erika had worn protective earplugs, but she'd still hit the ground hard. To Charlotte's surprise, though, instead of being angry or concerned at her defeat, Erika had been excited, clapping Shannon on the back and congratulating her on her focus. Raven had started weight-lifting, at Alex's urging, to develop his physical strength - which was good compared only to Charlotte's puny arms - though Raven had taken to it much more easily than Charlotte had. Emory and Charlotte had practised telepathic blocking on each other, at which they found that Charlotte could power through Emory's shields, but Emory couldn't get through Charlotte's. Emory made up for this, though, by being able to hold a completely separate verbal conversation at the same time, and thus distracting Charlotte into letting her shields weaken.

Erika and Harriet were working on the connecting cable to hook Cerebro up to the weather radar dish and thought it would only be a few days before it was ready to go. Charlotte couldn't wait. The current machine was working in the meantime, and it was amazing to switch it on and find the mutants within the current radius. She loved soaring through space as if there was nothing in the way, no distance and no time. Feeling that there were more mutants just out of reach was frustrating, though, and Charlotte decided to wait for the radar dish hook-up rather than taking more of Harriet and Erika's time.   
The radio was telling them all kinds of alarming things about the prospect of nuclear war - that the Soviets were planning to put missiles in Cuba, that this would mean instant destruction, that America might launch a pre-emptive strike - and it sent dread through Charlotte's heart. Shaw might be influencing people to her own advantage, but she wasn't influencing many: human beings were contemplating annihilating their own planet all on their own. Every time Charlotte heard someone make a speech about the "evil" of the other side, she wanted to jump in the car with Erika, drive to their home, and fix their brain. She had no illusions that this would work, though. It was far easier for Shaw to tilt the odds towards destruction than it would be to tilt the odds towards restraint.   
At night, she wrapped herself in Erika's long limbs and felt safe, although she knew perfectly well that even Erika couldn't stop nuclear missiles and radiation.

"Why are you so hostile to Emory?" Charlotte asked, idly, stroking her fingers through Erika's hair. She slicked it down so ruthlessly, but it had a lovely wave to it by the end of the day.

"I don't trust him."

"Even after I've read him? He let me, you know."

Erika rolled onto her back, her arm comfortably trapped under Charlotte's body. "No, it's not that. I don't think he's coming here with a big plan to spy on us. He's relieved to be away from Shaw."

"Then what?" Charlotte turned to gentle kisses of Erika's shoulder instead. "And will I get muscly like this if I lift enough weights?"

"Do you want to be? You're beautiful as you are, but a bit more force behind your punches wouldn't hurt." Charlotte poked Erika in the belly with her knuckles, and Erika laughed. "See what I mean? No, the reason I can't trust Emory is because he was with Shaw so recently. It took me a very long time to stop wanting to please her. Years. She's very clever: she isolates you, saves your life, makes you grateful, makes you terrified to do anything wrong. It's confusing to be alone, having to make all your own decisions."

"I'm sorry," Charlotte stroked Erika's belly where she'd poked it. "I hadn't thought of it that way. So you think he might not be able to confront Shaw?"

"I wouldn't have been able to. I don't know if it's better or worse that Emory wasn't in a life-or-death situation as I was: at least I can tell myself I had to do what she said to survive."

"But Emory will have an easier recovery, with food and a safe place to live and people protecting him. Someone to look after his injuries."

Erika shrugged. "Yeah. Emory will be probably all right in the end, but not yet. And don't you think that's enough talk about Emory?"

"Definitely," Charlotte laughed, and pulled Erika back towards her so she could kiss her properly. "I feel like a school matron or something, looking after all these people."

Erika's hand slid between Charlotte's legs. "As long as the matron at your school was as pretty as the one at mine, I'm good with that."

Charlotte wriggled against Erika's hand. "And you said you weren't attracted to other women! You great big lying dyke."

"Well, now that I've had good reason to be thinking about it…"

\---

Early the next morning, Charlotte woke up with a start. "Erika! Someone's coming in the gates."

Emory contacted her a moment later. *Charlotte, there's someone here.*

Erika was out of bed and dressed in seconds, at the window and peering out a gap in the curtains before Charlotte had even sat up. She sent Charlotte an image of the man emerging from his parked car and walking up the drive.

"Oh, it's Agent MacTaggert!"

"Didn't Shaw have her hooks in him?"

"Through Emory, but I have no idea what could still be there." Charlotte pulled on her nightgown, the old-fashioned one that Erika liked for some reason, and looked out the window, too. She put her fingers to her temple and stopped MacTaggert in his tracks.

*Everyone, Agent MacTaggert has shown up. Emory and Raven, would you come down to the front steps with me? The rest of you, please get dressed and stay alert, but don't let MacTaggert see you. We don't know if Shaw is still influencing him. If you see anything odd happening, think my name really loudly, or call Erika.*

*I'm fairly sure I was Shaw's only telepath,* Emory offered.

Charlotte grabbed her dressing gown and pulled it on over her nightgown. *'Fairly sure' is not a guarantee.*

"Do you have to go down alone?" Erika complained. "A sniper could shoot you from the tree line before you had a chance to stop them."

Charlotte stood up on her tiptoes and kissed Erika's mouth. "Shh. You stay right here where you can see everything and stop the bullets. Okay?"

Erika didn't reply, but she didn't stop Charlotte leaving.

MacTaggert stood frozen like one of the statues on the grounds, though with less moss.

"If we left him there long enough would he grow some moss?" Raven asked Charlotte. He'd changed into his blonde female form, the one that MacTaggert had seen him wear.

"His body isn't really frozen - his mind only thinks it is. He'd die of thirst in a few days."

"Gruesome!"

Charlotte and Emory walked around MacTaggert, probing his mind. The traces of Emory's influence were visible, though fading, and Charlotte's influence was almost entirely gone by now. No-one else had touched his mind as far as Charlotte could tell. She thought it might be difficult to come to that conclusion, but the remnants of Emory's touches were quite clear, and there was nothing similar there at all.

*Have you ever met another telepath, Emory?*

*Yes, my eldest brother Adrian. I doubt he'd have anything to do with Shaw, though, or with anything else that didn't immediately make him money or bring him influence. I think it might have been through him that Shaw learned about me.*

*Would your brother would want to come here?*

Emory laughed out loud. *He's thirty-two years old and the CEO of a major financial firm. I'm sorry, but you don't have a lot to offer him. But I don't think he's in danger, either.*

*I suppose that's good? I actually meant to ask in case you had any specific knowledge about detecting traces of other telepaths.*

*It's never been difficult to see someone that Adrian has influenced, and I can see your marks here, faintly. I can't find where anyone else has touched MacTaggert telepathically.*

*Good.* Charlotte gently pushed Emory out and dove into MacTaggert's more recent thoughts. Since the failed raid on the _Caspartina_ , MacTaggert was having trouble getting anyone other than Agent Duncan to listen to his theories about mutants; Harriet's apparent kidnapping along with Cerebro certainly shored up Duncan's willingness to pay attention. Harriet herself was under suspicion of being a spy who had returned to her handlers, though no-one seriously believed it: it was just that they couldn't think of a better theory. MacTaggert's network continued to feed him information about Shaw, and he had worked out that Shaw was trying to bring about nuclear destruction, though he had no idea why. He considered that the CIA was woefully underprepared to deal with mutants, but he knew some mutants, and perhaps they could help.

*He's clean - he's come to ask us to help stop Shaw,* Charlotte projected to everyone. *I'm going to release him, now.*

*Disarm him first!* Erika interjected. *He's got a gun at his hip and a pocketknife in his right hip pocket.*

Raven and Emory did so, and Charlotte released MacTaggert. He leapt backwards in shock at having them, from his perspective, suddenly appear in front of him, and his hand went to his gun out of instinct.

"Don't worry, Agent." Charlotte used her best hostess smile. Her mother would have been proud that all those etiquette and deportment classes paid off. "We froze you in place for a moment so that we could make sure you weren't here to harm us."

MacTaggert looked around him. "Nice place you've got here."

"It is indeed. Would you care for some coffee? I'm afraid I don't want people wandering around here with guns, but I'll be happy to return it to you when you leave."

"That's fine," MacTaggert said politely. "I can see you've got quite a few more people around the place." He gestured to the twitching curtain. "And I'm glad to see Harriet McCoy here - we were concerned about her welfare."

Charlotte led him inside and Emory handed back MacTaggert's knife, though Raven was quick to take the gun to the safe. By this time, everyone had gathered in the kitchen to see who the new person was, and Charlotte could see no reason to send them away.

"Everyone, this is Agent Marcus MacTaggert of the CIA. He's here to help us take down Shaw."

"Well, good," Alex muttered, though she didn't seem particularly pleased.

Charlotte made introductions, not omitting Erika, though Erika was lurking just outside the doorway as if she wanted to be omitted, and Harriet started the coffee.

"Let me update you on what we know," Charlotte told Marcus, and dumped the information straight into his head. If he wanted to work with mutants, he'd better get comfortable with it.

He blinked, slowly, and only recovered when a mug of coffee was in front of him. "So, two of yours defected to Shaw, and one of Shaw's defected to you. Shaw must know that you're aware of her plans."

"I agree." Erika spoke for the first time. "It's going to be difficult for anyone to stop her, though, and I'm sure she knows that. And she always has a back-up plan."

Both MacTaggert and Emory nodded at that.

"Any ideas?" Charlotte asked. The idea of fighting Shaw was suddenly becoming rather more concrete.

MacTaggert glanced up at Erika. "We traced the submarine, and it's nuclear. If we and the Russians manage not to start World War Three, I suspect she'll just detonate the sub's reactor and start it anyway. You should make it top priority to get her people out of there so they can't set it off."

"They've got a teleporter," Alex said, suddenly. "We're going to have to knock her out or tie her up or something."

"Azazel teleports whatever she's touching. She can't teleport out of handcuffs - the cuffs go with her." Emory sipped his coffee. "So if you tie her up, she'll still be tied up when she appears in the submarine."

"Or we could shoot her," Erika added, rather unhelpfully, in Charlotte's opinion.

"No. I don't think we should be planning to kill anyone, apart from Shaw, if we can help it. On a practical level, there's just not enough mutants in the world for us to go around eliminating them. On a moral level, we don't know what Shaw has done to them to gain their co-operation, and we must not kill someone who has been terrorised and tortured into doing wrong."

MacTaggert and Erika looked deeply dubious, but everyone else seemed to relax a little at Charlotte's declaration.

Shannon still looked worried. "Are you really going to kill this Shaw woman? Like, with murder?"

"Yes, with murder." Erika smiled slightly. "There are people in the world who are beyond any other kind of justice and Shaw is one of them."

"Not many people," Charlotte interjected, hopefully, but everyone bar Harriet seemed quite convinced by that idea. Harriet just stirred her coffee intently, her hand shaking slightly and rattling the cup.

Erika seemed to have taken to MacTaggert surprisingly well. She turned to him, gesturing with an oddly bent spoon that was floating near her hand. MacTaggert made a distinct effort to look at her rather than the spoon.

"Agent MacTaggert, how long do you estimate we have until the missile situation reaches crisis point? We may have another way of finding Shaw, but it's not reliable, yet."

"The Soviet Union has been installing missile bases and missiles in Cuba for months now. The confrontation will mostly be behind closed doors, between politicians. No-one wants all-out nuclear war, and they'll do everything possible to avoid it."

"Where does that leave Shaw?" Charlotte couldn't believe that someone like Shaw wouldn't be personally pulling strings to assure her plan's success.

"The problem is that, while negotiations happen, everyone will be very tense, and the whole area will be covered in warships and spy planes and probably half-a-dozen submarines. I suspect Shaw will plan to be in that area to cause an international incident. But you've got two telepaths here - you should be able to work out which submarines are meant to be there, and which aren't. Shaw's going to be looking for nuclear-armed ships or planes to aggravate, so that's where you should focus your efforts."

"Raven, would you get the atlas?" Charlotte asked, and Raven dashed off with the right book in mind.

Erika smoothed the spoon into its former shape. "No-one at the CIA has any idea about Shaw and her people, do they?"

MacTaggert shook his head. "And this is important. I need your help."

Raven hurried back in, lugging an enormous atlas of the Americas. "Here you go! That's my weight-lifting for today!"

He dropped it on the table, and Charlotte flipped through the vibrant, detailed pages until she reached the map of Cuba.

"That map's from 1895," MacTaggert protested. "Cuba is still a Spanish colony!"

Erika leaned over Charlotte's shoulder. "I doubt the actual topography has changed a great deal. Where are the missile sites?"

"Around here, in western Cuba." MacTaggert pointed to the end of the island closest to the US, furthest from the Atlantic. "But if they start a blockade, it's going to be out in the Atlantic, somewhere around here."

"There, we've already narrowed it down to two possibilities." The planning seemed to be energising Erika: she was tapping the coffee spoon on the table and rocking forward on the balls of her feet to look at the map. Charlotte took her hand to still the tapping.

Harriet pushed her glasses up to the bridge of her nose and peered at the map. "Ships carrying nuclear weapons tend to be on the larger side, yes?"

MacTaggert nodded. "Shaw's submarine just has a nuclear reactor, not weapons, which is why it can be so small."

"Look at the ocean here, near the missile site. It's very shallow. Whether or not they start a blockade, the big ships are going to have to be out here, in the Atlantic. I presume the submarines will be near there in order to attack them if needed. Without a telepath who can control several people at once, she won't be able to set off the missiles at the base - I've studied the electronic safeguards - but she could incite something between ships."

"McCoy, you're a genius," MacTaggert grinned, and Harriet blushed to the roots of her hair.

"Good." Erika was still tapping one finger beneath Charlotte's quelling hand. "But Shaw can't act until tensions are higher - there's too great a chance of successful negotiation. Until then, we need to train."

"How can I help?" MacTaggert asked, and Erika stared at him as if she'd forgotten he existed.

Charlotte took Erika's hand more firmly. "Harriet and I will keep working on Cerebro in the hope we can find Shaw's people before it gets to an armed confrontation. The rest of you can train with Erika and Agent MacTaggert."

"And Alex," Erika added, with a nod at the girl in question.

"Call me Marcus, and it's a deal," MacTaggert agreed. "I'm guessing Alex and Erika are the two with some combat experience?"

"You could say that," Alex replied, cracking her knuckles, much to Shannon's fascination.

\---

It took nearly a month before further action was taken. MacTaggert monitored the situation constantly, reporting on the build-up of ships and planes around Cuba, but Shaw made no further moves. MacTaggert had confessed to Charlotte that Agent Duncan had sent him to cultivate her as a contact, which Erika had taken remarkably well, commenting that at least he was direct about it. Charlotte couldn't work out why Erika wasn't angry about MacTaggert's presence in their house, being that he was both baseline human and a CIA agent, until one night when they were busy hooking up their cabling to the satellite dish.

"MacTaggert isn't a direct threat," Erika said, concentrating hard as she connected according to Harriet's diagram. "All of us can defend ourselves against him, now; he wants to take out Shaw and is risking his career to do it; and he's useful."

"You get along with him better than you do with Emory," Charlotte muttered, settling the sole security guard down for a long nap alongside the duty meteorologist.

"Of course I do. Emory is inherently flawed now that Shaw's had her hands on him. MacTaggert isn't one of us and never will be, but at least we know it."

Charlotte frowned at her. "Erika, you're being unfair. Emory has been nothing but helpful, and it's the same for MacTaggert."

"You're still monitoring them both. Your powers give you the chance to be more trusting, simply because you can verify your trust."

"Is that so bad?"

Erika broke out in a broad smile as she spliced cables into place. "No, I think that's a perfect use of your powers. It makes me feel safer."

Charlotte smiled up at her. Erika threaded the cables back into place behind a panel, a fine use of her power that she had got better and better at controlling over the last month of training. "Oh, you're saying that what I'm doing with my powers, you're doing with your naturally suspicious personality."

"Exactly." She closed the panel and jumped down from the chair she'd been standing on. "It's why I've stopped feeling like I'm a danger to you: you can look into my mind and stop me even before I have a bad thought."

"Erika, I don't change people's minds around unnecessarily. The last time I did large-scale meddling was when Raven was brought into the family, and that took a lot of fixing."

Erika waved her hand. "I trust you, that's the thing. If you are wiping thoughts from my brain, I'm not going to know about it. I don't want you to, as a general rule, but if it kept you safe? Of course. Do it."

Recoiling slightly, Charlotte sent a message out to Harriet, up at the house, so she could start testing the connection, which hopefully wouldn't burn out like the last three. "You really think I'd do that?"

"I really think you should." That weird, blank look was creeping back on her face, and that was an expression that Charlotte hadn't seen so much recently.

Charlotte shook her head. "I'm such an idiot. You tolerate MacTaggert because he's making me safer; you hate Emory because you think he might hurt me. That's what's going on, isn't it?"

Erika said nothing, but held out her hands, monitoring the current coming through from the house to the dish.

Charlotte walked up behind her, making sure that her footsteps were loud and clear, and hugged Erika, her arms around her waist and her face resting against Erika's back. "I love you, you know that. But you're narrowing this mission down to just two objectives: 'kill Shaw' and 'protect Charlotte'."

"What's wrong with that? I have no intention of letting the others be hurt or Shaw start her apocalypse; it's just that there's two things I've prioritised."

Charlotte kept her arms around Erika's tense body. Erika had done so much, getting them to work as a team, to be ready for violence and aggression, to help Harriet realise her inventions, that it felt quite sad to Charlotte that Erika could close off so much of herself. Even after a month, Erika was such a stranger to Charlotte in some ways: she'd seem pleased, or angry or determined but sometimes there was just nothing there, like she was going through the motions of life. It confused and hurt Charlotte, especially as Erika claimed to have no idea about it. Erika seemed especially capable at shutting out things that had been important or enjoyable to her the day before - sleeping late, mock-fighting with Alex, reading about warships - and pretending that she'd never attached any value to those things whatsoever. Well, Charlotte shouldn't say "pretending": Erika really could detach herself from things, good or bad, and Charlotte could never work out when or what.

"The cable's holding," Erika said, still tense, though not moving away from Charlotte's embrace. "We should go back to the house and try it."

"I've got a better idea. Come on." Charlotte took Erika's hand and walked out of the weather station, towards the house. She'd rather got out of the habit of wearing heels, since Erika, Alex or MacTaggert were likely to launch surprise attack drills at any moment that required an inordinate amount of running. The night was barely cooler than the day - weird and dry weather for mid-October - but even so, Charlotte shivered slightly in her light summery dress. Erika put an arm around her and they headed back up the hill, across the vast lawn.

As they reached the gravel path around the house, Charlotte stopped and turned them both around. The dish was off in the distance, spotlit. "See the satellite dish, Erika? I want you to move it."

Erika laughed, then realised Charlotte was serious. "It's too big. I could barely slow Shaw's submarine. There's no way I can move it."

"I've seen you checking out the tonnage of the ships and planes MacTaggert says are likely to be there. What are you planning to do, if not move them?"

"Rip holes in them," Erika said, but she was still staring at the dish, fascinated. "Maybe shove a few of the planes around."

"Okay. So let's practice on something lighter than a destroyer."

Erika spread out her hands as if she was going to try, then stopped. "I can't. I've never moved anything as big as the submarine before. My power is a lot stronger when I'm angry or hurt. You know that."

"I know that's a serious limitation." Charlotte stayed close, though not touching.

"Yes, you're right. I'll try." Erika stretched out her hands - she didn't need to, but it helped her focus, she'd told Charlotte - and got a feel for the mechanisms of the dish, finding the pivot points, feeling the bearings in their grooves. She focused, with a faint groan, but the dish didn't move.

Charlotte pocketed her watch, as the clasp had popped open with Erika's effort. She didn't say anything, though, because Erika was still concentrating. Her breathing was short as she worked up her strength, her face flushing with anger and determination. She jabbed her hands towards the dish again and there was a faint groaning noise, but no movement.

"It's no good. Too big."

Charlotte stepped forward and placed her hand flat on Erika's sternum, just above her bust. "Shaw taught you to use your power that way. I doubt it's the only way to use it."

"What's your opinion then? Anger's got me through very well, thank you."

"No, it hasn't. You have to close off so much of yourself to be able to use it, and you can never forgive or let go because it's all fuel to the fire."

Erika glared at Charlotte, but didn't step away from her. "I don't want to forgive or let go."

"I'm not saying you should. I'm saying there's more than one kind of fire. Not everything about a person, not even you, is mechanical like that. We're the sum of our memories, not the slaves of them."

"Charlotte, I'm not following you."

Charlotte moved her hand up to Erika's temple, giving her plenty of time to pull away if she wanted. Erika didn't move, simply closing her eyes and waiting.

Charlotte had been in Erika's mind many times before, and it was an amazing place, memories and observations connected by strong and deliberate ties, the mind of someone who had worked very hard to train herself to survive anything. There was, though, an entire substructure of memories and experiences that were not so clearly sorted. In most people's minds, this would be a big confusing jumble of good and bad, connections running between the most apparently random things in ways that Charlotte wouldn't be able to work out if she examined their minds for a hundred years. In Erika's case, those few bright memories not connected to something she considered useful - enjoying a new city, stabbing a Nazi - were kept away from her conscious mind as if she'd painted over pages of a photo album with ash.

Carefully, Charlotte reached for one of those isolated bright spots, making sure that it wasn't something deliberately repressed - she'd learned her lesson years ago trying to drag memories of her father from her mother's mind - and brushed it off, letting it rise into Erika's consciousness.

It is crowded and dark with four families in one tiny apartment in Warsaw, but Samuel Prydeman had somehow managed to use scavenged candlewax to make eight beautiful candles that looked like new - plus a rather lumpy shamash candle to light them - even nicer than the Shabbat candles he'd produced since they'd all been forced to live here together. Erika's father had wired two more branches onto a cheap iron candelabra that Erika and her uncle had scavenged in the ruins of a bar a few months prior. That made it into a makeshift Hanukiah, even if the extra branches were a bit wobbly, and they were having a Hanukah celebration for the children. Even Erika's big sister Ruthie had made it downstairs tonight, though she was huddled in a blanket and muffling her cough. Erika - and there was that other name again, hiding underneath "Erika" - of course considered herself an adult at eleven, so stood with her mother listening to the blessing. They light the shamash together and carry it along the row from the first to the eighth candle, smiling at each other in the glow of the golden light as the children on the floor call out for treats on this last night of celebration. It is a peaceful memory, a precious space in her childhood where she felt perfectly safe and well-fed as well as loved; the last occasion she can remember her family all together and happy.

"Oh." Charlotte wiped a tear from her face. "Erika? That was a very beautiful memory."

"I thought, I thought I had lost that." Tears were on Erika's face, too, though she seemed to be unaware of them. Charlotte had never seen her cry.

"Try again, with the satellite dish. There's so much more to you than violence and anger."

Erika held her hands out, took a surprised moment to wipe her eyes when she couldn't see the dish clearly, then tried again. There was little strain as she gestured, and the satellite dish groaned once, then smoothly turned on its base. Erika laughed and laughed, bright and open, as the dish rotated at her command, back and forwards along its huge bearings.

"I can do it! Schmidt was wrong! She was wrong!" Erika let the dish go and threw her arms around Charlotte. "Thank you, thank you so much."

"You're welcome," Charlotte smiled into Erika's collarbone, feeling rather squished but delighted at Erika's clear and unrestrained joy. She tilted her face up, put her arms around Erika's neck and kissed her, their bodies pressed as close as they could be without climbing inside each other, which sounded rather nice to Charlotte right now.

"Charlotte! Erika!" It was Harriet, yelling out the ballroom window. "We have to test Cerebro before the meteorologists come in tomorrow!"

"Of course!" Charlotte called back, then kissed Erika again for good measure. "Come on, let's go expand my mind as well as yours."


	8. Cuba

Raven hoped that the problems in Cuba would never come to a head. He was enjoying this far too much. Erika, Alex and MacTaggert were brutal teachers, but Raven had never known that was what he wanted. He'd always been tall and strong for a girl, and hadn't really got into any fights in his life, but what his teachers were showing him now felt absolutely right. Raven had a good sense for shapes and movement, but he'd never tried to apply that to anything more than observing fashion and copying people. It turned out that this talent stood him in good stead when learning to fight - and avoid fights - but skilful observation was no good if he couldn't train his body to follow through. He lifted weights with Alex twice a day, ran with Erika and MacTaggert every morning, and practised with anyone who had time. Erika had some training that she called Krav Maga - apparently they had women soldiers in Israel. Raven really liked this kind of fighting, as it involved observing the enemy and preferably attacking and incapacitating them before they attacked you. MacTaggert and Erika taught each other various skills, and Alex bulled on through with strength, speed and the ability to take a hit and keep going. Raven wasn't so good at that yet, but Alex and Erika agreed that he was getting better with practice. He could take pride that at least he was better at it than Charlotte, Shannon or Harriet. Emory wasn't allowed to join in until his shoulder had grown back properly, at which Emory had expressed great relief.

Shannon was certainly bloodthirsty and endlessly energetic, but her main method of both attack and defence seemed to be to have longer arms and legs than her opponent and flail at them until they gave in. Even after some training, as soon as she got hit she'd revert to violent flailing. Harriet had superb balance, and could dodge and outrun anyone, but was terrified of actual violence, preferring to run or surrender as soon as someone took a swing at her. MacTaggert hadn't given up on her yet, but Erika and Alex had. Charlotte was by far the worst, though. She was happy to go running - though she was easily distracted unless someone coached her along, the same as when she drove a car - and lift some weights, but when it came to fighting she had all the skill of a boiled noodle. She kept on trying, with Erika's encouragement, but as far as she could get was some improvement in dodging and running away. MacTaggert was having some more success with a self-defence course taught to women agents - Charlotte had enthusiastically stomped on his foot so hard it bruised - but Raven wasn't sure how well foot-stomping would work against Shaw and her cohorts. Still, with any luck, it wouldn't come to that: Charlotte could stay safe and use her powers while the rest of the team got Shaw and her people away from the submarine.

Raven and Alex still talked about Darwin and Angelo, wondering how they were in hushed voices, but the things Emory had told them left a deep, gnawing worry in Raven, and made Alex punch things. He'd been thinking that at least Darwin probably couldn't be hurt - no scars for her like the ones on Erika's body - but then he realised that Darwin would want to look after Angelo, and Shaw would be able to get to her that way. It was difficult to hurt Emory, too, and Shaw had forced him to serve her for years. They'd run through all kinds of scenarios for taking down Shaw, but Erika had outright rejected Raven's favourite - get Charlotte to make her walk into the sea and drown - for some reason that made Charlotte looked at her with worried eyes. Anyway, Shaw had worn that weird helmet to protect her from telepaths and Emory had confirmed that it worked, at least on him. Raven couldn't understand why Erika had such an urge to get close to Shaw to kill her, but every discussion came around to that. It wasn't that Raven wanted to make Charlotte do it, but it seemed safer to keep away from Shaw.

Their best distance attack - Alex's blasts, now controllable at three settings, thanks to Harriet and Erika - wasn't usable on Shaw, if Emory's account of her mutant power was correct. There was no reason why Shannon's power wouldn't work, though. She'd been practising her screams, and she could cause a lot more damage than just breaking glass: she could knock people down, take out a door, make people dizzy with the right frequency, and, most recently, fly. She'd refused to jump off the roof, even into a net, after hearing how the gardener had died, but jumping from windows wasn't really working. Instead, Erika had taken her to the top of the satellite dish and shoved her off, which worked perfectly. Erika claimed that she'd been ready to catch Shannon by the metal on the harness of her glider - made from a roll of stripy canvas that had once been meant to re-cover the shade umbrellas by the pool - but Raven wasn't certain that he believed that, and Shannon was quite convinced that Erika was ready to let her die if she wasn't useful.

What worried Raven most was Harriet's continued crush on him. It wasn't that he didn't like Harriet - he did, a lot - but that Harriet was so constantly negative about her appearance.

"But I look strange, and you like me," Raven told her after an ill-advised make-out session in the hedge maze. Raven was holding his blond male form most of the time, now.

"No, you only look strange when you're asleep. The rest of the time you're gorgeous."

"So are you: you're strong, and fast, and cute."

Harriet waved it off. "No, I'm not. Alex was right about my parents being happy to get rid of me. MacTaggert checked, and they haven't enquired as to my whereabouts. I guess I'm an embarrassment to them."

"Just because some people don't like you doesn't mean you're embarrassing. Maybe they're the ones with a problem," Raven argued.

"Easy for you to say. Firstly, you're a boy, and secondly, you look like this. Even as a girl you were pretty." Harriet touched Raven's lips with one finger. "Don't argue, it's true."

Raven relaxed to his blue form. "I look like this, too."

Harriet leaned closer, conspiratorial. "You may not have to, much longer. I'm developing a serum which should help correct our appearance problems. Thank you for letting me use your cells: they've been the breakthrough I need."

"Wait, you can do that? Won't it affect my ability to change forms? And your abilities?"

"Well, I won't be able to hang upside down anymore! It shouldn't affect my strength or balance, though, at least not once I get used to it. In your case, it would just be a cosmetic application in your base form, removing the deviation from the human norm."

Raven stood up, feeling oddly unwell. "What is the human norm, exactly?"

Harriet shrugged. "We all know it when we see it, don't we?"

Raven stretched out a hand, rippling through skin colours from brown to pink to blue. "Is that so bad? I mean, Emory's diamond form isn't normal but it's amazing." He knew this was a bit of a low blow - Harriet and Emory got along very well.

"Emory has a choice. And he's a guy." Harriet stuck her feet out, encased in their huge, ugly shoes. "This wouldn't matter so much if I was a guy. Ugly guys get married all the time."

"You want to get married? I thought you liked science?"

Harriet shrugged, but her face was miserable. "I want to be able to choose."

Crouching back down, Raven hugged her. "You don't have to choose anything you don't want."

Harriet sat quietly in Raven's arms. "But I can't choose anything I want, either."

As they all sat down to dinner that evening, MacTaggert came in late, his face grim. "The President is going to make an address to the nation tonight. He will announce a blockade of Cuba."

They all jumped as Shannon dropped her fork.

"So, we're going to Cuba tomorrow?" Raven felt excited and terrified at the same time.

"Unless the President says something very different from what the CIA expects, yes. The Soviets will have to test the blockade, and everyone will be on edge. It's the perfect time for Shaw to start trouble: there'll be nuclear missiles on site and at least a few of the ships and subs will have nuclear-tipped missiles. It won't take much."

Charlotte shivered, and Erika put a firm hand over hers, and turned to MacTaggert. "Is your plane still available?"

"Yes. It's at the airfield ready to go, and I can pilot it. Harriet, they used your radar-baffling paint on it."

"I designed a whole plane to go with that paint," Harriet replied. "They laughed when they saw a woman's name on it, but they still used the paint."

"They're not complete idiots," MacTaggert argued. Harriet, Charlotte and Raven couldn't resist laughing at that, and it broke the tension a little.

Alex spoke up, unexpectedly. "Agent MacTaggert, what will happen to Shaw's people? I mean, are you going to arrest them?"

"I can use my discretion on that one. I'm sure we can come to an arrangement."

Charlotte briefly touched her temple in a gesture that Raven could see MacTaggert didn't recognise as a threat, but that Alex acknowledged as a promise. "Yes, I'm sure we can."

"Emory's not ready to go," Harriet told Charlotte.

Erika was first to reply. "Good."

"Erika! That was uncalled for," Charlotte scolded, but Erika didn't look at all ashamed of herself.

Raven took the opportunity that their exchanges of glares presented. "Emory, do you want to come to Cuba?"

"No, Erika's right. Apart from my shoulder - Harriet thinks the new crystals won't stand up to much yet - I don't trust myself around Shaw. Of course, I'm also wondering why Erika isn't asking herself that question."

The table broke out into a babble of argument, but Erika's voice cut through the noise. "I've had seventeen years to ask that, and I know the answer: I want Shaw dead more than anything else in this world."

Raven couldn't help but glance at Charlotte then, and caught the quickly smoothed-away look of distress, something that he'd seen on their mother's face more than once, and never wanted to see on Charlotte. If they all survived this mission, he was going to have words with both Charlotte and Erika.

"We'd better go upstairs to hear what the President has to say," Charlotte said, with the practised authority of years tutoring undergrads. She pressed her mouth with her serviette and stood up, taking Erika's hand again.

They all crowded into the TV room for the President's address, sitting all over the sofa and on the floor, except for Erika who paced instead.

The President's voice filled the room, slightly crackly until Erika waved her hand and the reception improved. "It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union."

He talked on, but Charlotte looked like she was about to cry, so Raven slid into the small space between her and the arm of the chair and hugged her, stroking her hair. "It's okay, Charlotte. We'll stop them."

"I have faith in us." Her voice was a little wobbly, and her mind was locked down hard, which Raven knew meant she was holding back a lot more emotion than she was showing. "But there's so many weapons, and so many people wielding them, and this is not all Shaw's doing: she's only taking advantage of the situation. It's hard to think about building a future when this is looming over us."

"What else can we do except give up?" Raven asked her, unaccustomed to seeing Charlotte crack like this. He caught a sideways glance from Charlotte at Erika, who was intently watching Kennedy's address, and he hugged Charlotte a little tighter. This wasn't really about nuclear war: that was too big to contemplate. It was about Erika seeing the end of her quest to kill Shaw, and Charlotte's fear that she would lose Erika.

"I'm not giving up," Harriet said, and everyone seemed to come to life with a deep breath. "Science does good as well as evil. We can't leave everything to the people who want power."

"They won't give us justice," Erika agreed. "We have to take that ourselves."

"And opportunity," Raven added.

"And fairness." Shannon.

"Or freedom." Alex.

"Or that particularly nice Rolls Royce you've got tucked away in the garage," Emory concluded. "Nobody will just hand you one of those."

"That was a serious discussion!" Harriet protested, but everyone else laughed at her outraged face, and, after a moment, she laughed too.

"Go to bed, everyone," Charlotte said, smiling again. "It's going to be an early start tomorrow, and a long day."

\---

Erika woke up before dawn, so full of energy she thought she might explode. Charlotte was already gone, which was unusual for her, so Erika quickly dressed and strolled downstairs to find her. Over the last few weeks, Erika had got used to the particular jewellery and other bits of metal that everyone wore, and could easily find anyone in the house except for Raven, who carried no metal at all. Charlotte (silver-plated pen, small watch, earrings) was down in the re-stocked lab with Harriet (bent paperclips, glasses, big watch, four ballpoint pens, pocketknife). Unusually, Erika could hear Harriet shouting at the other end of the hall - she was normally quiet to a fault.

"Doctor Xavier, I know you have more biochemistry experience than I do, but I'm telling you that this is the best way forward."

Charlotte's voice was softer, but Erika was more used to its particular cadences, and had no trouble hearing it. "Injecting yourself is not scientific, Harriet. I respect your right to choose an acceptable level of risk, but you're putting your emotional needs above the science and that's very unlike you."

Erika didn't think that was unlike Harriet - or Charlotte - at all, but she was willing to concede that Harriet would like to think that she was that logical and detached.

"What kind of trials do you think would be adequate, then?" Harriet's voice still held a panicked edge, but she wasn't not shouting now.

Charlotte's voice stayed steady. "Animal trials. I managed quite a few by injecting my own blood and CS fluid into immunosuppressed mice. It didn't give them mutant powers as such, but I could certainly monitor effects of various substances and experiences on the mutant genome without harming myself. You might not be able to monitor the cell changes you want, but you can at least make sure that it won't kill you, or cause uncontrolled cell growth. And judging by your preliminary testing, that's a very real possibility."

Harriet sighed. "You're right, of course. Could you order some mice, perhaps, when we return?"

"I think that's an excellent idea. I'm sure we can rope Shannon in to look after them."

Erika shuddered with revulsion - she hated mice and all the talk of experiments didn't help - and Charlotte must have picked up the strong emotion, because the tone of her conversation changed immediately.

"Now, what was it that you wanted to show me, Harriet? I think Erika's on her way down."

Erika took that as a cue to stroll into the lab, where Harriet was putting away a small black box, like the ones doctors used to carry syringes to prevent breakage. "You're up early, Charlotte."

"It's an important day, my dear." Charlotte sat up on one of the benches and pulled Erika close for a kiss. "And Harriet had something to show me."

Harriet dragged a large steel crate out from the rear of the lab. Erika could feel the weight of it and was again impressed with Harriet's sheer strength, which, today at least, she was able to utilise: her feet were bare and she was perfectly balanced, her toes spread wide.

"What's in there?" Charlotte tried to peer in as Harriet opened it.

"I thought, well, most of us aren't bulletproof or pressure-resistant, so I got hold of these suits from an Air Force research colleague. They were meant to be an all-purpose outfit to allow your pilot to be hooked up to oxygen, shot at, kept warm and rescued from the ocean. I mean, it won't stop a direct hit at close range, but it should help with, say, ricocheting debris from whirlwinds."

"Well done," Charlotte applauded as Harriet brought out what looked like a navy blue wetsuit with bright yellow panels, presumably to make a downed pilot visible in the water.

Erika leaned forward to look more closely. "Why is it designed for a woman?"

"There was a training program for women to go into space. Women average better on the physical tests, weigh less and require less oxygen," Harriet said, and there was something wistful in her face. "But they cancelled it."

Charlotte pressed her full lips together so hard that they made a thin tight line. "Of course they did."

"Anyway, we can benefit from it now. There's forty-three suits in here, mostly women's, but there's a good range of sizes."

"Super!" Charlotte dug in and started dragging out uniforms. They must have been heavier than they looked, because she tried for an armload, gave up, and just pulled out one instead. Erika concentrated - she'd been working on moving things without gestures - and lifted the whole lot out by the zippers and buckles, arranging them along the long bench by the window.

"There you are."

"Thank you, Erika - oh, look, I think there's one in my size!" Charlotte pulled a small suit off the pile. "You may now imagine me as an astronaut."

"I think you would make an excellent astronaut," Harriet said, selecting a bigger suit for herself.

Erika sorted through the suits to find one long enough to fit her. "I'm sure you would, but I'd much rather have you here than in a little tin capsule spinning around and around the Earth. For one thing, you'd talk Cape Canaveral's ears off."

"It's true!" Charlotte passed a suit over to Erika that seemed about the right size. "It's no good exploring space if no-one's there."

Harriet made a huffy sound, but she looked less tense than Erika had seen her in days. Erika would have to ask Charlotte what was in those syringes, later.

Everyone else made it downstairs in the next half-hour or so, with much admiration of the suits Harriet had located. Alex was particularly pleased, as Harriet had singled one out for her short, muscular body and stitched another power-controlling device into the chest.

"Thanks, bozo!" Alex said, admiring herself in the suit and giving Harriet a friendly punch in the ribs.

"Maybe as a thank you, you might stop calling me bozo?" Harriet suggested, but Alex just laughed and went out for a smoke with Emory, who, despite being the one not going on the mission, was by far the most anxious.

Raven was the only one who refused to wear the suit, preferring to modify his own skin instead.

"You're not bulletproof," Erika told her, tapping on the hard plate of skin he'd formed on his chest, under a copy of the yellow panel of the suit.

"Neither are those suits, not entirely. And if I wear one, I can't change shape in a hurry. But thanks for caring." Raven's sarcasm was greatly softened by his smile, which quickly faded into worry. "You're going to look after Charlotte, aren't you? I mean, I'll try, too, but I can't stop a bullet."

"After killing Shaw, Charlotte's safety is my highest priority," Erika promised, with complete honesty.

Raven didn't seem particularly pleased, though, and stalked away to see if Shannon had managed to get into her suit and flight harness yet.

*I know what you mean, and thank you,* Charlotte told Erika. *It's taken me an awfully long time, but I understand how important this is to you.*

*I love you,* Erika suddenly told Charlotte, the words so much easier to project telepathically than force her uncooperative body to speak out loud.

*I already knew that, darling, but thank you for saying so.* Charlotte returned emotion so strong that Erika had to hold the bench for a moment, staggered by the weight of Charlotte's regard, by how much Erika meant to Charlotte. *Now, try not to get yourself killed.*

*I promise.* Erika was entirely serious about her words: for so long it hadn't mattered if she lived or died, if only she took Shaw down first. Secretly, she had to admit to herself that it hadn't entirely mattered about Shaw actually dying, as long as Erika didn't have to live in a world with her anymore. Now, though, Charlotte's life and Erika's life with her took a very strong second place to Shaw's death, and it was both confusing and intensely powerful for Erika to know that there was more to her than her single-minded mission of the last seventeen years.

\---

The plane that MacTaggert had acquired was a great black beast that crouched on the runway at Danbury Municipal Airport like a raven amongst sparrows. Charlotte thought it was vastly too large for them, but Harriet explained that it was mostly engines: the plane itself could only carry about a dozen people. Inside, the seats were Spartan and the safety webbing extensive. MacTaggert's first act was to get them all comfortable with their harnesses so that they could easily don or release them in case of emergency.

"I don't think this plane is made for women," Charlotte grumped, having had to leave off one strap which would have sat right across her throat. "Maybe there was a better one to go with these uniforms?"

"Sorry," MacTaggert called back from the cockpit, where he sat with Harriet as co-pilot. "A lot of pilots and astronauts are short, but not quite as short as you."

Erika stood over Charlotte. "Here, I'll attach a chest-strap that actually goes across your chest." She pulled over some clips from a spare harness and placed it carefully, pulling Charlotte forward in her seat to make sure it didn't slide up.

"That's better service than I've ever had flying commercial," Charlotte joked. "Maybe there's a career waiting for you as an air stewardess?"

Erika smirked. "If the planes have as much steel in them as this one, and all the customers were you, I'd be very happy to."

"Stewardess!" Alex called. "My belt needs fixing, too!"

"Don't push it," Erika snapped, but she walked over and fixed Alex's belt in the same way, giving her a good shove into her seat which made Alex laugh. The rest of the team members were tall enough to be fine with the standard belts, so once Erika was finished with Alex's, she sat down beside Charlotte. Her belt wove through the air to fasten itself, and Charlotte took her hand.

"I think this will be more fun than our first flight together."

"From Miami? That was a dreadful introduction to your jet-setting life."

Charlotte giggled, and hoped the hysterical edge wasn't audible over the sound of the engines. "You wouldn't believe I hadn't been on a plane in seven years before all of this, would you?"

Erika squeezed her hand firmly. "You know, I think I would."

The powerful engines threw them into the sky, pressing them into their seats with far more force than a commercial plane.

"I'm going to be sick!" Shannon yelled. "Oh wait, no, I'm okay!"

"You can fly but you get airsick?" Raven, next to her, had been edging away as much as the safety webbing allowed. "I only sat with you because I thought you'd be fine!"

"I am now the plane's levelling out!"

Charlotte telepathically connected everyone, at a very superficial level to allow communication with very little overflow of emotions and thoughts. That was the last thing they needed in a tense situation. *All right, we can all stop shouting now. Let's review the plan.*

Alex was first to speak up. *Go to Cuba, get in range for you to scan people's brains, find the odd submarine out.*

*Or Shaw's people directly,* Charlotte added. *Emory said Shaw only had the one helmet and didn't know how it worked. If it even works against me.*

*Once we've found the submarine, I'll make it surface and Alex will damage the propeller so they can't get away.* Erika's mental voice was clear and precise.

*As soon as the people come out, I hit them with the dizzy sound!* Shannon was very enthusiastic about that part of the plan.

*Then Erika ties up Azazel as soon as possible.*

*I've got steel cord ready,* Erika said, nodding at two big coils strapped down near the hatch.

*Shannon, what's your next task?*

*Keep the sonic blast on Azazel as much as I can, to make her disoriented so she won't try a risky teleport.*

*Harriet and Raven?*

*Search and rescue,* Raven and Harriet chorused. Charlotte had been insistent that they save anyone they sent into the ocean, even their enemies. Raven continued, *I've got lifejackets ready to drop, then Erika can pull them up when it's safe. Or Harriet's got a line on a winch if anyone's in big trouble.*

*Or I could stick them to the outside of the sub,* Erika added.

Charlotte directed her instructions to everyone, though they were primarily to Erika and MacTaggert. *Nobody left behind, remember. We don't want to leave mutants for either of the fleets, or the Cubans, to pick up.*

*Then Shaw.* Even though Charlotte's connection was deliberately light, Erika's anticipatory pleasure spilled through, and Raven shuddered, with a sideways look at Charlotte.

Charlotte forged on. *Get the helmet off, if she's wearing it, then I'll be able to control her.*

*Then what?* Raven argued. *Hold her still while Erika stabs her to death?*

*Shaw is a very dangerous mutant. I don't want to kill her, but we need to be prepared, Raven. This is not the time to argue about it.*

*Then when should we argue about it?*

*Never,* Erika said with finality so strong that the connection wobbled for a moment. *There is no debate. Shaw needs to die.*

*You say! And what if you get killed chasing after her, what will that to do to Charlotte?*

Charlotte paused, not sure what she should say to Raven, and Erika took her silence as concern. Erika let go of the telepathic connection entirely and shouted at Raven over the noise of the engines. "I say Shaw needs to die because it's true! She killed my mother! And my children!"

Everyone stared at Erika, but she didn't stop. She was on her feet now, perfectly balanced on the steel floor.

"The only person in the world who knew was Charlotte, but if you're doubting Shaw's evil, then you obviously need to know! Shaw shot my mother because I failed to move a coin. Shaw forced me to have a baby, and killed her because she wasn't a mutant. Shaw forced me to have another, and I don't know how she killed that one, and that's what I need to ask her before she dies. Any more arguments?"

Raven stuck his chin out, but kept his silence.

"Oh, man, I'm sorry," Shannon was the only one who spoke. "I'm really sorry."

Erika realised she was standing, then, and sat down in her seat, the slightly warped buckles reshaping until they fitted together again. "Charlotte?"

Charlotte was planning to wait before re-connecting everyone's minds with Erika's, but Erika was perfectly calm now, disconnected from her emotions in that way that Charlotte always found frightening. She trusted Erika to return from that place, though, so she re-established the connection.

*Is everyone all right? My own thinking is that there is no jail that can hold Shaw and no government that can make her answer for her crimes - and no, Raven, taking her to Israel like Eichmann is no use if she simply escapes - so in this one case, we have no other options apparent. If other options present themselves, and if we have time, I would be happy to discuss them.*

*I won't discuss anything,* Erika said. *But if you feel it's wrong, I'll do it without your help.*

*I don't know how much help I'll be, since I can't blast her, but I'm with you, Erika.* Alex's voice was quiet and determined, without a trace of her usual joking.

*Me too,* Shannon agreed. *If someone killed my mom, I'd hunt them down just like you have.*

Charlotte and Raven exchanged looks again, and Charlotte linked Raven to herself, privately.

*I'm sorry, Raven. She's been talking about killing Shaw since we first met, and I thought I'd accepted it, but now I'm thinking about actually holding someone still while they die…*

Raven laughed, gently. *Oh, Charlotte, you think I'm worried about the ethics? No, silly, I'm worried about you killing someone, and worried what will happen if Erika gets herself killed. I know how you are about her, and I don't think she's as crazy about you. Not with this in the way.*

*No, that's exactly it! She can't be free until Shaw is dead, don't you see? Then she'll have all of herself to give. She's already given me so much, but I know there's more.*

*Just…don't do anything stupid, okay? I've never seen you like this with anyone, and I'm scared for you.*

*Raven, my darling sibling, I promise to be careful with my body, since you think I've already been careless with my heart.* Charlotte thought she'd been very careful indeed with her heart, giving it to exactly the right person, but she could feel Raven's genuine fear for her, and didn't want to argue with him, not today.

*Okay, Charlotte. I'll hold you to that.*

\---

Raven couldn't get over his feeling of dread, especially as none of the others seemed to feel the same way. Erika's revelation had cleared the air, and she, Shannon and Alex were happily discussing tactics with occasional input from Charlotte; MacTaggert was busy flying the plane and Harriet was enjoying finally getting to operate all the equipment she understood in theory. Raven kept thinking about Emory, waiting at home to see if any of them survived, and, weirdly, that gardener who died, the one who had threatened Angelo. Would Darwin and Angelo even care what happened to Raven and Alex, now? Or did they enjoy that power Shaw wielded, the way Raven sometimes thought Charlotte did; they would be free to move through the world in safety and solitude, isolated from other people's struggles? Raven wasn't an idiot: he knew that money conferred the same abilities, to a large degree, and he had no wish to exchange that for being hungry and homeless again. And yet, here he was in a plane with a woman who wanted Raven's sister to help her murder someone. He felt like something had gone deeply wrong along the way, that it was so easy to say yes, Shaw must die. Surely the power of life and death was something that Shaw herself thought she should hold? Why were they agreeing with their enemy, an undoubtedly evil person? Raven felt like he'd been seduced with the excitement of finding more people like them, with Erika's power and strength and sheer will to survive; his delight had been tempered only by Harriet's insistence on looking "normal", on his being male. Raven didn't want either of those things - to kill or to submit - but it was too late to back out now, and far too late to pull Charlotte out along with him.

"We should be coming into range in a few minutes," MacTaggert announced from the cockpit. "I've cut two of the engines so we move slowly and stay out of sight."

The volume of the engines was immediately less, and Raven realised how loud it had actually been.

"I'm ready," Charlotte called back, settling into her seat and pressing her fingers to her temple. "I'll let you know - oh, there goes a plane, the pilot doesn't know anything about Shaw - when I'm in range of the ships."

"I'm picking up radio chatter with Agent MacTaggert's decoder," Harriet said, almost at a normal decibel level. "It seems that there's a Soviet freighter approaching the blockade. They claim to only be carrying oil and are asking to be allowed through."

"That's the first crisis point." Erika couldn't sit still, but stalked through the plane. Raven watched her, and at every wobble or jolt of the plane, Erika simply stuck her feet to the steel floor and rolled with it. Raven decided not to let Erika's pacing bother her, but focused on Charlotte instead.

"Two ships are headed to intercept the freighter _Bucharest_ ," Charlotte murmured, dreamily. "Can we follow them, please?"

"Got them," MacTaggert called back, and turned the plane further out into the Atlantic.

"USS _Newport News_ is the flagship, so if there's any information about unknown vessels in the area, it will be reported to them." Harriet seemed to be handling the multiple radio channels with aplomb, and Raven wished there was something as useful that he could be doing.

"Can't feel them right now. Focusing on the crisis point." Charlotte was very distant, unsurprisingly, and Erika stopped pacing long enough to put a steadying hand on her shoulder. "Oh! Oh God, they're all dying or dead."

"Who's dead, Charlotte?" Erika's voice was very calm, and Raven was grateful for that.

"Everyone on the _Bucharest_."

"The US destroyers aren't getting any radio response from the ship," Harriet confirmed.

"There's a Soviet submarine, _B-59_ , nearby. I can feel their worry, too. The _Bucharest_ isn't carrying any nuclear material - only oil, as they claimed. They're testing US response times. They don't know why their ship isn't replying."

"The _Bucharest_ will to sail right through the blockade at speed," MacTaggert pointed out. "We've got about four minutes."

"Shannon!" Charlotte yelled. "We need you to get on that ship and stop it, and tell us what happened to the crew. I'll be telepathically connected to you and Harriet, so we'll tell you what to do."

Shannon unbuckled herself and shook out her stripy gliding wings. "What if the killer is still there?"

"I can't detect anyone alive on board, now."

Shannon flapped her hands at Charlotte. "No, I mean with the helmet on! So you can't find them!"

"Then you'll have to get their helmet off," Erika told her. "The ship is run from the bridge - you can smash the window and fly right in. If there's anyone there, you'll see them before you go in and you can blast them."

"Okay, then, okay."

"Here's a map of where the bridge is," Charlotte got up, her boots magnetised to the floor, to pat Shannon firmly on the shoulder. "You'll be fine - it's a much bigger target than we tried at home."

"All right! Hey, Harriet! Open the bomb bay doors!"

Harriet did, spinning around just in time to see Shannon leap out, her long limbs flapping.

"She's fine!" Charlotte cheered, linking everyone together again.

*I can see the big window,* Shannon shouted. *It's so awesome flying on the ocean!*

*Concentrate on your task.* Charlotte directed her forwards.

*You can do it!* Raven added.

*Uh, there's no-one there, so I'm going in!*

There was a mighty crash of glass, heard through the link, and Shannon was inside the freighter. *Shit, oh shit, excuse me, sorry, there's four dead guys in here. There's a lot of blood.*

Charlotte stayed very calm, and let that calm reach out to Shannon. *Dead guys can't hurt you, Shannon. It's the live ones you've got to watch out for.*

*Okay, okay, got it. Now what?*

Harriet quickly directed Shannon how to make the freighter turn and stop, and she followed the instructions to the letter. Raven breathed out a long sigh. This was actually turning out fairly well.

*The Soviets and Americans are both confused, now,* Charlotte was still standing near the closed bomb bay doors, but was holding onto a strut and had her fingers at her temple again. *They're all radioing for further orders…it looks like the Americans are about to contact DC and ask them if they can board the ship. But the _Bucharest_ is definitely not going to breach quarantine.*

"You can detect the submarine crew," Erika had gone back to speak to Charlotte. "Can you find Shaw's people?"

"Not close by, but all that blood sounds like Azazel's work, doesn't it? Oh, Harriet, Shannon's flying towards us - can you open the bomb bay again?"

Charlotte and Erika stepped back, and Shannon flew up and in, her hair wild around her face. "That was amazing! Except for the dead guys, and I think I got blood on my shoes, sorry."

Charlotte grabbed Shannon in a hearty hug. "Shannon, you were perfect!"

"Thanks, man!"

Erika gave her a firm shove towards her seat. "Well done."

Shannon beamed, and strapped herself in next to Raven.

"Wait!" Erika shouted. "The _Bucharest_ is moving again!"

It was indeed, Raven could see from the window, a slow and ominous turn back towards Cuba.

"I've got Azazel!" Charlotte shouted, then, "No! She's gone! I had Azazel for a moment, then she vanished."

"Keep the doors open!" Erika yelled, and slid down the strut onto a wheel. Raven could see her framed in the door and she looked, for once, tiny and fragile against the open sky.

Raven didn't dare get out of his seat, though, so he pressed his hands together and dug his nails in, terrified for everyone, but at the same time exhilarated at what they could do as a team.


	9. Shaw

Erika magnetically attached herself to the wheel strut so she couldn't fall, and reached out with her power. There was the _Bucharest_ , and _B-59_ not far away, a much bigger submarine than Shaw's. The two American destroyers were close by, on a steady course for the _Bucharest_ but Erika quickly observed them so that she could then exclude them from her search. She dragged the rudders of the cargo ship to one side and jammed them, turning the freighter out into the open ocean: it ran the risk of alerting everyone that something else was happening, but at least she could stop the freighter running the quarantine line. If Charlotte couldn't find Shaw's people, their submarine must be further from their position than _B-59_. Erika mapped the shape out in her head and started to search below the surface.

She was almost immediately interrupted by another plane in the area, dropping depth charges into the water almost directly above _B-59_.

*Charlotte? What's happening?* Erika yelled telepathically to Charlotte up in the body of the plane.

*That's a US Navy plane - it's been ordered to maintain the quarantine line against submarines! They're just small charges, but they could still cause damage. Oh, no, the submarine's got orders to fire and it's got nuclear weapons. This is nothing to do with Shaw: they're doing it themselves!*

*Well, stop them!*

*It's okay, it's okay, the First Officer of the sub doesn't want them to fire... I'm encouraging the Captain to listen to him. They're going to surface. Get rid of that plane!*

Erika concentrated on the Navy plane and carefully peeled away part of the metal skin on the side of the cockpit, making sure not to damage a wing or an engine so that the plane could make it safely back. She didn't want it to crash and start nuclear war anyway. It quickly turned towards the US fleet, as she had hoped.

*Well done!* Harriet's voice was in Erika's head. *They think they had some kind of rivet failure.*

 _B-59_ surfaced, and then Erika caught a glimpse of a shadow nearby, a smaller vessel slinking closer now that the depth charges had ceased falling. It was the right size, the right composition - Erika could never forget how it felt slipping from her grasp near Miami - and she took a deep breath and grabbed it.

For a second, she couldn't hold it at all, and in the next moment their plane dipped towards the water. Everyone inside screamed and Erika instantly released her hold on Shaw's submarine, keeping only an awareness of its location.

*You're protecting us!* All Charlotte's love came through that link. *You're not relying on anger, Erika. You're relying on your own strength.*

Erika grinned and held out both her hands, feeling the submarine trying to get away. It was headed towards the deep ocean, but Erika easily turned it around into the shallower waters, away from the other ships and towards a string of barrier islands. The submarine strained under her power but she turned the rudders to match their new direction, overriding commands from within the vessel with ease. The metal was singing to her, clean and clear as it had never been before, and she felt like she could lift a thousand submarines with as much ease as she let a coin flip through her fingers. The waters got shallower and she simply lifted the submarine free of the water and floated it through the air, propeller first so that it didn't tear into pieces, allowing Shaw to escape. She could hear voices behind her, but paid no attention until she heard a sharp cry from Charlotte.

Erika immediately dropped the sub, sending it crashing up the beach, smashing palm trees as it went. She climbed rapidly up the wheel strut and peered up through the open bomb bay, sliding the coiled steel cords down from their position by the door, ready for action.

The first pair of legs she saw belonged to Angelo; Erika blinked and looked up to see that there were several people in the plane who hadn't been there a minute ago, and that all of them were frozen.

"Charlotte?"

"She's got them," Raven called down to Erika. "Give her a moment."

Erika pushed herself up onto the metal floor and saw they had four invaders: Angelo, Darwin, the Spanish woman who generated whirlwinds, and Azazel. Only Azazel seemed armed, but Erika knew that meant nothing where mutant powers were concerned. Charlotte stood bare inches from Azazel, shaking slightly with effort. Erika threw her steel cables around Azazel, making sure to bind the woman as tightly as possible, then Jana, Angelo and Darwin. She had no idea if the cords could even hold Darwin, but she could only try.

"Thank you," Charlotte breathed, and relaxed somewhat. Angelo and Jana slid to the floor. Azazel remained frozen, but Darwin shook her head and seemed to recover herself, the steel cords disintegrating into metal shavings.

"Dammit," Charlotte gasped, and Alex shot Darwin from across the plane, at her control device's lowest setting. Darwin staggered slightly, flickering stony scales across her torso, then put her hands above her head.

"We surrender."

"What?" Erika couldn't comprehend what Darwin was saying, but Charlotte put out a careful hand and held her back.

"We surrender," Darwin repeated. "We've come here to get away from Shaw."

Charlotte touched Darwin's temple before Erika could shove her back, away from Shaw's people. "Darwin is hard to read, but as far as I can tell, this is true. I can't properly read Azazel either, but Angelo and Jana are indeed here to escape Shaw."

"It's true," Darwin said, her usual calm voice in place, as if they were strolling down a street instead of teleporting between submarines and planes in an international crisis zone. "You guys sure took your time showing up. I've had them convinced for over a week now."

"Why didn't Azazel teleport you away, then?" Erika wasn't ready to believe this.

"She wanted to make sure you were willing to stand up against Shaw and actually protect us. We didn't make much of a showing last time."

"Because you and Angelo ran off to join her!" Alex yelled, but she had sat down in her seat again and had her hand off the control switch on her chest.

"Angelo did, and I couldn't let him go alone. Jana's parents met fighting the Fascists in the Spanish Civil War and died during the occupation of Hungary - she's got no love for Nazis. And Azazel got her name killing Nazis and running supplies during the Siege of Leningrad. Once she found out what Erika told me, she was wasn't enthusiastic about continuing to work for Shaw. They're not the only people Shaw has, but they're the only ones I could get to."

"And Angelo?" Charlotte asked.

Darwin glanced down at the teenager slumped on the floor. "He's angry and he likes the power. He's not so angry he wants everyone to die. And we didn't know Shaw's plan until the last few days, unlike Emory Frost."

"We've got Emory," Charlotte told her, before Erika could stop her sharing intel with a potential enemy. "He's fine - he told us what Shaw was doing."

"Who else does Shaw have with him?" Raven interjected, and Erika could kick herself for not picking up on that.

"Two more mutants, but we haven't seen much of them. There's a girl who runs fast and her brother, but I don't know what he does."

Azazel spoke and everyone jumped. "I would thank you to release me, Doctor Xavier."

"You are very resistant, aren't you?" Charlotte asked her.

"It takes practise, yes. I apologise for opposing you and supporting Shaw." She couldn't move her limbs, but she could talk in a hoarse whisper and the tip of her tail twitched slightly.

"And the man you killed at my home?" Charlotte's eyes were cold.

"No apology. He was a bad person. I did not know that when I killed him, but the world is better without him."

"No!" Charlotte shouted suddenly, and Erika saw a brief glimpse of someone leaping up from the water carrying something metal - leaping as high as the low-flying plane - and then there was an explosion and they was spinning in mid-air.

"We're going to crash!" MacTaggert yelled.

Erika quickly ripped the steel cables away, releasing those she'd tied up, then launched herself at Charlotte, tackling her to the floor and covering her with her own body. It was easy to magnetise herself to the deck, pinning Charlotte in place, except that Charlotte was trying to wriggle free.

"Stay still!" Erika shouted as loud as she could, trying to be heard over the roar of the dying plane and the screams of the people stuck in it.

*Help the others!* Charlotte shrieked back, telepathically. Erika glanced up to see Darwin had firmly stuck herself to the wall, but Angelo and Jana were screaming as they were thrown against the ceiling. Azazel wasn't screaming, but she was also in trouble. She had wrapped her tail around Raven's seat; Raven was failing to hold her in place, no matter how large and strong Raven made his arms.

*Make Raven let go,* Erika told Charlotte, and, the moment Raven did, Erika directed a steel cable to wrap around Jana's legs and drag her to Azazel, then threw Angelo right out the bomb bay by the zippers on his clothes and boots. The plane rolled again and Erika had to use all her strength to keep Charlotte and herself from crashing into the roof that was now the floor. When she looked up again, Azazel and Jana were gone, leaving only a wisp of black smoke. Then they hit the beach and she had no time to think about anything but forcing the shredded metal of the plane away from the cabin and cockpit rather than letting it kill everyone inside.

Just as quickly, there was silence. Erika jumped to her feet out of instinct, and hauled Charlotte up with her. Amazingly, Charlotte seemed to be unhurt, but Erika could see blue sky behind her: half of one side of the plane, and most of the wing were now missing.

"That girl - she had a grenade!" Charlotte gasped. "I made her drop it but it was too late."

"We're good now." Erika quickly glanced around at everyone else. There didn't seem to be any injuries on the scale she'd expected - decapitations or crush injuries - but Shannon was crying and had a bloody head wound. "Charlotte, protect everyone here. I have to go after Shaw."

"Wait - " Charlotte called, but Erika was already moving.

Erika leapt from the plane, staggered slightly when she hit the sand - her left knee and ankle were not quite right - but ran on towards the surprisingly intact submarine up at the tide-line. Azazel and Jana had materialised on the beach and were picking themselves up out of the sand, and Angelo fluttered down to join them.

"I'm going after Shaw, don't get in my way!" Erika yelled. "Help the people on the plane!"

Angelo and Jana turned for the plane, but Azazel joined Erika running towards the submarine. "I will stand with you."

"Show me the way into the sub!" Erika had no intention of trusting Azazel, no matter what Charlotte said, but it was foolish to cast aside someone so potentially useful so early.

"The worst of the damage is to the side that's now on top," Azazel yelled back. "I'll teleport you in!"

"No!" Erika threw herself at the huge marooned vessel and climbed nimbly up to the gap, shoving herself upwards with magnetic force when there was no handhold. Azazel simply teleported to the top and the two women dropped down into the submarine together. As they did, it groaned and rolled back onto its base a little. Erika caught the movement quickly and eased the vessel down into a stable position.

"Will it collapse on us?" Azazel asked. "Shaw is in the most secure room, in the reactor."

Erika felt the shape of the submarine. "No, the structure has held very well. Far better than the plane."

"It is designed to stand up to great pressure. This is good. We do not want a nuclear leak." She approached one of the control panels. "I will shut down the reactor, now. It takes some time to shut down completely, but Shaw won't be able to restart it from in there."

Erika watched her closely, but she could feel how the switch was constructed, and though she couldn't say if it was a reactor Azazel was shutting down, she was certainly powering down something.

"You are suspicious, of course." Azazel shrugged and walked forward, through a shattered room with expensive-looking artwork on the wall.

*Erika? Can you hear me? There's a blank space right near you, I don't know what it is. Erika?*

*Yes, I'm here. We're in the submarine, but I can't see Shaw yet.*

*Everyone's all right here - Shannon's injury looked worse than it was.* Charlotte's mental voice sounded sharp, but Erika ignored the tone.

*Good. Stay there, and stay in contact. I'll find Shaw.*

Azazel pressed on a panel and the wall shifted slightly. "Here, I think it's stuck. The reactor room is in here."

Erika held out her hand, but before she could force the secret door open, it wobbled and slid open on its own. Standing behind it was the figure of Erika's nightmares, and, horribly, she looked just as she had seventeen years ago. The only differences were that now she wore the helmet Emory had described, and that she was dressed in black rather than the khaki of the Nazi uniform. Her smile was exactly the same: pleasant, toothy, terrifying. Erika stopped breathing for a moment, then forced herself to take a breath, slowly and evenly, as if that would mask the trembling in her legs and hands.

"Frau Doktor," Erika said, and walked forward. Azazel walked with her, into the mirrored chamber behind the door. It was oddly warm in there and the doors slid shut behind them.

*Erika, I can't - * As the doors clicked shut, Charlotte was silenced, and Erika realised how very much Charlotte had been in her head over the past weeks. Still. Better that Charlotte wasn't here right now.

Shaw was smiling as she always did, holding her hands out to welcome Erika and Azazel. "You've come to join me, my little Erika! How wonderful. I always knew you would come back to your creator. Thank you, Azazel."

Azazel's tail twitched nervously, and Erika knew how she felt. She took another step forward, the coin she kept over her heart heavy against her skin. She wished her hands would stop shaking, but then, it didn't really matter. She didn't need her hands to kill. "That is not correct, Frau Doktor."

Her smile never wavered, even as she tsked at Erika, that familiar, horrible sound. "It will be." She reached out and touched Erika's forehead and Erika was thrown backwards as if she'd been punched, slamming into the wall with rib-cracking force.

"You were a Nazi all along," Azazel sneered at her. "I should have known, from all your talk about breeding."

"Oh, my dear young woman, how wrong you are." She reached out to touch Azazel, who dodged, then froze in surprise. Shaw flicked her with one neatly manicured fingernail, sending her spinning into the wall near Erika. "And no, you cannot teleport away as you so like to do. We are very well shielded in here."

Lying on her stomach on the ground, Erika took a deep breath, felt it pull against her ribs, and took another. Pain was good. Pain was focus. She ruthlessly pushed away thoughts of Charlotte, of her allies and her friends. This was no place for them. This was a place for Erika and Shaw, for death. She closed her eyes on the memory of her mother hitting the floor - dead between two blinks - and opened them again to her mission. She felt a smile slide onto her face, and she struggled to her feet, leaning against the wall for support. "Frau Doktor. I have not come to join you: I have come to warn you."  
"Have I erred in judgement, little Erika? No, I can't call you that now. You have grown into a fine, strong woman. Erika, then." She made no further move towards Erika, though Erika could feel her own breathing synchronising with Shaw's, an old trick she had taught herself in the long days on operating tables or on concrete floors. Shaw had been in full control then, with only the worse horrors of the camp outside, but now Shaw's domain extended no further than this room. If Erika could get her away from the reactor, they would all have a chance.

"Your plan is going to fail. I've come to warn you."

"How very altruistic of you, Erika. It's been a long time since you were concerned for my well-being."

Erika blinked again, slowly, buying herself a moment to see the way out, to change the world so she could survive again. "I didn't know that you were like me. A mutant."

"That's the word they're using these days, yes." Shaw was interested, though. Even under the helmet, Erika could see the tilt of her chin, the spark in her eyes.

"Now I know. Now I understand why you trained me. You saw how strong I am now."

"Yes, I certainly did."

"And that's not all I've done. I've studied. I know why your plan won't work." Erika found it so much easier to remember details when she could be calm like this, utterly calm, safe from fear and distractions like Charlotte and her soft hands.

"Why is that?"

Azazel suddenly lunged at Erika, but Shaw intervened, lazily swiping Azazel away, sending her sliding across the floor and into the far wall where she lay still.

Erika answered as if there had been no interruption. "The level of radiation will be too high. Most mutants' powers don't protect them against that much radiation that fast. Almost everyone in the hot zones will die, even the mutants. Only people like you and Darwin will survive. So many useful powers, lost."

Shaw nodded. "I see. You don't think the children will survive?"

"I think more of them will survive than adults, but there are too many mutant powers that won't provide any protection against that level of radiation. We'll lose the telepaths and the flyers, at the very least." Erika could see Shaw totting up numbers in her head. 214782, she thought, wildly, then pushed it down again. She never saw what number her mother had been given, or if her father was given one at all. It didn't matter. They were gone. Erika was here.

"You have an alternative, don't you? Good girl, Erika, always trying to plan ahead. I wasn't surprised that you'd survived. It was a real wrench to leave you like that, but I was under a great many constraints at the time."

Erika nodded. "An alternative. Yes. You know what it is. Your paper." She was running out of words, and tried to align her breathing with Shaw's again, but her chest hurt. Pain. A focus. Pain.

Shaw's smile was brilliant. "You have done your homework! You're talking about smaller doses in a particular population, aren't you?"

"Young people." Erika took a breath again. "Young people are the most likely to show mutations. It's useless to irradiate a whole continent when you can irradiate particular areas. Azazel can take us anywhere. You have nuclear materials."

"You fucking traitor!" Azazel shrieked, teleporting across the chamber and hurling herself on Erika. Erika went to the floor in the assault, but Azazel was worse hurt than Erika, and a single hard punch to the belly had her screaming. Erika ripped the metal from the walls and wrapped Azazel in it, making sure to catch her wrists and ankles and neck. Once the hard cocoon was formed around her, Erika threw the whole metal bundle through the doors as hard as she could, smashing an enormous hole in the shielded room.

*ERIKA!* Charlotte's telepathic scream was so great that Erika staggered and fell to one knee.

*Be quiet,* she returned. *Please be quiet. Stay where you are. Be quiet.*

*You're hurt.*

*Shut up!* Erika pulled herself as far away from Charlotte as she could, though the connection was still there.

"Ah, yes, I hadn't thought she might teleport within the chamber. Come along, Erika," Shaw called, walking out of the gap where Azazel had been thrown. "I would love to meet your friends."

Erika forced herself up, wiping an annoying trickle of blood out of her eye, and followed, hoping desperately that everyone had stayed out of the way, behind the plane. Azazel was casualty enough. In the submarine, Shaw slammed her hand on another hidden panel, and a door slid aside to reveal a narrow cupboard. Erika shuddered, then shuddered again as she realised that, as always, Shaw was keeping someone in there. It was a dark-haired boy, a skinny teenager, who flinched away from Shaw in terror.

"There, now, Waszka."

"You don't call me that," the boy said, under his breath, then, louder, "Where is my sister?"

"Your sister is doing her job," Shaw showed her teeth in a flat, fake smile, and moved one hand towards the boy, who slid to the floor trying to avoid it. "And you are not." Shaw shook her head. "Erika, this is Wacław Maximoff, but we call him Waszka." Her Polish pronunciation was as poor as ever and the boy didn't look thrilled to be addressed with such an affectionate nickname.

"Erika Lehnsherr," Erika replied, with a nod to the boy.

"Waszka and Petia only recently surfaced, but I've had my eye out for them for a while. Such a pity I didn't get them earlier - training them will be much more difficult now. Petia took down your plane; Waszka doesn't do much of anything, which makes it very odd to me that people were trying to kill him. I saved their lives just as I saved yours, Erika." Shaw closed a hand around Waszka's arm, very carefully, and walked him towards the side of the submarine.

Shaw reached up and grabbed the bottom of the rip in the submarine, then pulled down, creating a new opening in a shower of metal and sparks. She walked out, then, as if she had nothing at all to fear, and Erika was starting to think that she didn't.

Outside, the beach was in chaos. Ships were approaching in the distance, though Erika couldn't see whose, and Petia was zooming up and down in the shallows despite the best efforts of Alex and Shannon. Shannon was trying to hit her with a sonic blast and Alex with a low-level energy beam, but neither of them were fast enough to actually catch her. Erika didn't know why Charlotte didn't stop the girl, but perhaps Petia's mind moved as quickly as her body and was hard to read. The moment Erika was clear of the submarine, a whirlwind started on the beach, kicking up sand everywhere.

"Oh, Jana, really?" Shaw muttered, but was prevented from saying anything else when Harriet and Darwin leapt from the top of the submarine onto Shaw's head and shoulders. They were instantly thrown aside with a shriek from Harriet, and without succeeding in removing the helmet. A violent blast of sound struck at them - Erika didn't catch the worst of it, but she still stagged and wanted to vomit - and Shaw fell to her knees. As she fell, she let go of Waszka who ran off into the storm. Visibility was terrible, but Charlotte must have located the telepathic gap where Shaw was, because one of Angelo's spit bombs fell from the sky and scored a direct hit on the back of Shaw's jacket. She shed the jacket quickly, without getting up, and before Erika could do anything about it, pounded both hands hard on the ground.

The sand quaked and rippled, and Erika heard screams from outside the sandstorm. The storm abruptly stopped, sand tumbling to the ground, and Shaw went stalking towards the plane. Erika quickly checked the light connection in her mind and realised that Charlotte was in that plane.

Erika caught up to Shaw in a few long strides. "Frau Doktor! Why are you hurting them? They're valuable mutants!"

Shaw turned her head just enough that Erika could see her smirk. "Oh, Erika. I'm not going to kill them. I'll simple teach them that they should obey. Unlike you, I think they need a few more lessons in pain and obedience."

*Charlotte, run! Run!* Erika thought as hard as she could, seeing Shannon and Alex lying at the edge of the water and Harriet under a tree.

MacTaggert leapt from the plane and emptied his gun at Shaw, to no effect.

"And what do you do, young man?" Shaw reached towards him, but MacTaggert had enough distance - and enough training - to duck under her hand and sprint like hell. Shaw spun around to try to grab him, distracted from the submarine, and that's when Erika acted.

She focused all of the pain and terror inside herself, directed all of that towards Shaw's helmet, and lifted. To her horror, it barely moved.

Shaw turned to her and smiled, grim now. "Erika, Erika, you are a great deal more subtle than when you were a child, but no less stupid. My power, when appropriately charged, interferes with yours. It always did. And what have you learned, in all this time? You've learned to find allies, certainly, but you have never learned true obedience. Now, I know you have friends hiding in this wreck of a plane. I can feel the energy of their pathetic little bodies. Let's try an exercise, shall we? I'm going to count to three, and you're going to bring your friends to me. If you don't, I will destroy the plane and everything in it."

Erika raised her hand to pull them out - Charlotte and Raven were the two still in there - but she couldn't do it. She could not give them to Shaw.

"One," Shaw said. Darwin sprinted towards them, but Shaw slapped her away with an easy swing of her arm, sending her tumbling down the beach.

Erika tried again, the terror building within her.

"Two."

*Be calm, Erika. I love you. Remember that there's more to you than what she made. Don't let her set the rules."

Erika took a deep, painful breath and let Charlotte's voice flood over her. The flicker of candles was in her mind, and the memory of a woman dead on the floor. She flexed her hands, feeling all the metal of the plane calling to her, clear and strong. As Shaw opened her mouth again, Erika pulled hard and the entire shell of the plane shredded into ribbons which wrapped smoothly and gently around Shaw, like rolling a bandage.

The black of the plane opened out into beautiful silvery steel. There was no force in Erika's actions, but a simple, easy movement unspooling the metal and encasing Shaw, holding her firmly without hurting her. Erika wrapped the ribbons of steel around and around her, layer upon layer, pinning her limbs to her body without pressing them, without giving her more power. Within a minute, there was only a thick column of wrapped steel, Shaw stuck inside it.

Charlotte and Raven stood in front of Erika, in the remnants of the plane, their mouths open in shock. Erika sat down, suddenly exhausted and in pain. Charlotte ran to her side.

"Oh, Erika, my dear, you're hurt! Is Shaw dead?"

"No, Charlotte, it's not over. I have to get the helmet…"

"Do it. I'm ready to hold Shaw the moment I can." Charlotte's face was pinched with worry, but she stood aside, one warm hand on Erika's shoulder.

Angelo and Darwin were at the water's edge checking on Shannon and Alex, who were stirring; MacTaggert was helping a limping Harriet back and Jana emerged from the submarine with a very cranky-looking Azazel. Petia and Waszka were nowhere to be seen.

"Get up and finish the job!" Azazel shouted, bloody spittle flying from her mouth, and Erika staggered to her feet with help from Raven.

"Come on, we can do this," Raven muttered, pulling Erika closer to the steel column. It was moving slightly, twisting and bulging on one side as Shaw slowly worked her way out.

Erika reached out to find the helmet and pull it free but before she could, a huge explosion came from Shaw's body, sending metal flying everywhere. Erika could sense every piece of it and grabbed them all firmly, but the force of the explosion sent her and Raven cartwheeling into the air, helpless.

Before they could fall again, Erika collided with a body and realised that she was no long spinning through the air but descending slowly, firmly held by Angelo. Angelo was shouting something, but Erika's ears were ringing from the blast and she couldn't work out what he was saying. Shannon's scream was not far away, and that wasn't helping: she'd caught Raven and was lowering her to the sand near the water's edge.

*Erika! Raven!* Charlotte linked everyone again.

*We're fine,* Raven called back. *Where's Shaw?*

*She blasted herself clear over the wreck of the sub!* Harriet said. *She's still got the helmet on!*

Erika and Angelo landed gently on the sand and Erika ran for the sub. If Shaw was still alive, there was no way she would stop now. Before she got to the submarine, Harriet had leapt around the end of the it and staggered back, covering her eyes.

"It's Shaw!" she yelled, loud enough to get past the shrill noise in Erika's ears. "She's going nuclear!"

The bright light hit Erika's eyes, too, and she stumbled, but kept moving. Behind a sand dune, she could see Petia and Waszka, hiding from the brightness.

"You can't stop me!" Shaw crowed, her skin glowing, the helmet a dark spot against the brightness. "I am immortal and this war will leave only those worthy to survive, only those like me! You, Erika, will die here with everyone else! I thought you were ready to become the mother of a new race, but you are nothing, just like your own mother!"

Erika narrowed her eyes to see Shaw's form at the centre of the light. She threw herself at Shaw, surrounded by all the metal she could haul off the beach, but Shaw hurled her backwards with ease and laughed.

"Even your son is nothing! All the power he should have and he simply cowers behind his sister! The world will be a better place with all of you dead."

Erika let Shaw's words wash over her, as meaningless as they had ever been, and fell to her knees in the sand. She was too tired to find the anger she felt for her mother, and Shaw had driven away all that she had felt for Charlotte, all the memory and grace that let her powers work so easily. It was futile. Shaw really was better than her, and Erika wasn't going to survive this time.

\---

Charlotte could see Erika on her knees, silhouetted in the ferocious glow of Shaw's building energies, and she couldn't bear it. She called everyone together, and reached out to the teenagers hiding in the dunes, too.

*Petia! Shaw is about to explode!* She felt the words shift in Petia's mind, Charlotte quickly assimilating a completely unfamiliar language. *Can you get your twin out of here in time?* "Twin" was a stronger word than "brother" to her: Charlotte didn't understand the nuances of her mind yet.

*No! I can't run fast with him. Shaw saved us - she doesn't need to hurt us.*

*She doesn't care who she hurts right now. We're going to attack her. Please join us, for your brother's sake.*

*Okay!* Petia's agreement was as quick as her feet, and she rushed at Shaw at the same time as Azazel attacked from one side and Darwin from the other, Harriet pelting Shaw with junk metal from behind the plane, and Angelo and Shannon swooping overhead, spitting and screaming respectively, focused directly on Shaw; Jana's whirlwinds were ferocious but did not move Shaw. As they distracted her, Raven yelled to Alex, who fired not at Shaw, but at the sand beneath her feet, making her stagger as the treacherous sand shifted.

When Shaw stumbled, Waszka stepped out from behind the sand dune, his hand outstretched in a weird parody of Erika's gestures. Charlotte couldn't see anything happening - no burst of energy, nothing moving - but then she felt a great burst of hatred come from Shaw and realised what Waszka had somehow done: as Shaw lost her footing, her head had tipped forward a fraction too far and the helmet had fallen to the ground, right in front of Erika.

Charlotte grabbed Shaw in an instant, and clung to that horrible mind with all her might. "Raven," she croaked, "Raven, tell Erika to kill her. I can't, I can't hold her for long. If I let go, she'll explode at full power and kill us all. What she did before was only a fraction…"

Raven dashed over to Erika's side and pulled her back to her feet. "I understand now," he told Erika. "I understand."

Erika looked stunned, but she picked up the helmet and held it close. The coin floated out of the neckline of her uniform and she gently pressed it into Shaw's hand, looking into her eyes as she spoke. "This is yours. I wanted so much to kill you with this, for my mother, but Charlotte is in your mind and I can't hurt Charlotte. I'm sorry that your death will be gentle, but I will rejoice that you are dead."

She reached out her hand and slowly pressed it over Shaw's mouth, pushing the edge of her hand up against Shaw's nostrils to stop her breathing.

*No! That little Jew bitch!* Shaw screamed in Charlotte's head, but that was the most coherent of her thoughts. She was so incredibly strong, stronger than anyone else Charlotte had ever met, and the sheer rage of her mind reminded Charlotte terribly of Erika. Shaw's rage, though, was not on behalf of anyone else, not the helpless loss of a child and a quest for revenge: it was a wild shriek of thwarted power and unjustifiable righteousness. Charlotte staggered under it, and felt the edges of Shaw's mind begin to darken with encroaching unconsciousness.

"Hold on," Raven was bearing Charlotte up, now, as Charlotte gasped for oxygen for burning lungs that were not hers. "Hold on."

Shaw and Charlotte both fell, but Erika didn't move her hand away; a moment later and Charlotte felt Shaw's mind spiral down into a hideous swirl of pure fury, then unconsciousness. She didn't dare let go, but she no longer invaded Shaw's mind so completely, and she could breathe again. Shaw's dazzling light faded.

Azazel knelt down at Shaw's side, and put two fingers on her neck. Erika and Azazel stayed crouched over the body for what seemed like a very long time, until Azazel removed her hand and, a moment later, Erika followed. Charlotte tried to touch Erika's mind, give her comfort, but Erika was entirely blank.

Azazel drew one of her swords and neatly severed Shaw's head. There was surprisingly little blood.

As everyone stared, Erika suddenly leapt to her feet and shouted an incoherent warning, spinning around and pointing out towards the sea. Everyone turned to see what she was doing and saw, to their horror, missiles speeding towards them. Erika threw the first off course but it still hit before anyone could move, then it was a mad panic of taking cover as missiles exploded in the sand and Erika reached out her hands to try to stop them all.

Jana helped, throwing whirlwinds out into the sea that took out some of the low-flying missiles, but there were so many, and every time Erika turned two aside, one reached the beach. Charlotte could hear MacTaggert yelling on a radio, somewhere, but she couldn't work out what he could possibly be saying, and then it was too late to think anything as she was thrown into the air and hurled at the ground.

Charlotte opened her eyes again to see a blue sky, and Raven's face, the blue sleeve of Erika's suit.

"It's all blue," she wanted to say, but the words wouldn't come out. She tried to get up, but for some reason it didn't work. She must have been hurt, but she couldn't feel any pain. Instead, what came out was, "The missiles!"

"Erika's stopped them all," Raven told her, and Charlotte could see the image in his mind: that ruthlessly blue sky, and hundreds of missiles hanging perfectly still in the air. What she couldn't see was Erika, although she was sure that was Erika right beside her.

"Erika?"

"I'm here. You've been injured in the missile explosions. Lie still."

"No, you're not here!"

Erika's face loomed into her field of vision and Erika was wearing Shaw's helmet. That made no sense at all. Charlotte scrunched her face up trying to revise the picture, but no, it was still the same, and she couldn't feel Erika there at all.

"Why?"

"All the training we did, all that nonsense about good memories and being more than pain - that didn't defeat Shaw. Mutant powers defeated Shaw. Your powers and Waszka's and Alex's. Did you know that he's my son? He looks like his father." Her voice was quiet and flat.

Charlotte tried to smile, but sighed instead. "And Petia, then. Twins."

"They're your kids?" Raven gasped.

"They have survived this long, and I will not be the cause of their death."

Charlotte seemed oddly short of breath. There was a trickle of blood slowly making its way down the side of Erika's face. Charlotte watched it in fascination. "What do you mean?"

"Those ships fired on us again. They want to destroy us utterly." Erika moved away from Charlotte. "I am going to destroy them first."

"No! No, there's hundreds of men on those ships! They opened fire because they don't know who we are." Charlotte clutched at Raven's arm. "Raven, help me. I can't see Erika."

Raven gently tilted Charlotte's head to the side and she could see Erika again. She hated that helmet: it was like Erika was an image on the television. "No, Erika. Don't hurt them. They're no threat to us, not really."

"They hurt you!" Erika screamed, her throat raw, then, in a far more even tone. "They tried to kill all of us!"

Charlotte could hear Harriet's voice from somewhere. "We need to get Charlotte to a hospital."

Erika turned, but Charlotte still couldn't see Harriet. "You're right. Azazel!"

Azazel walked into Charlotte's field of view. Charlotte kept feeling weirdly overheated, then cold, in turns, and right now she felt like she was flushing as red as Azazel's skin.

"Can I get her to America from here? Yes, no problem."

"No!" Charlotte called, and Raven moved slightly, sending a shock of pain through Charlotte's body, all the way through her torso. "Ah, no. Don't take me anywhere, Azazel. I won't let you take me. We all leave together or we don't leave at all."

Erika looked down at her. "All right, Charlotte. This won't take long." She spread her hands again, the sunlight gleaming on her helmet, and Raven gasped as the missiles began to move again.

Charlotte tried to reach out to Erika, tried to find the brightness of her mind the way she had before, but there was nothing. *Raven, please. Stop her. Shaw deserved to die - those men don't.*

*I know,* Raven replied, and gently laid Charlotte's head and shoulders down in the sand, where she could still see Erika.

Raven ran at Erika, as fast as he could, and it was a mark of Erika's surprising trust in them that he got close enough to tackle her around the waist and bear her to the ground. The missiles sputtered and a few exploded mid-air, but Erika wrapped a leg around Raven's and rolled them over so that she was on top. Raven swiped at the ribs Erika was protecting, making both her and the missiles waver, but then Erika punched Raven in the face again and again until she got free. The missiles held terribly steady in the sky.

"Erika! Stop!" Charlotte yelled, to no avail.

*I'm okay,* Raven thought at Charlotte, his mouth too full of blood to speak.

"Erika! Please stop, for my sake!"

Erika turned at that, though the missiles stayed on course, and Charlotte can at least see part of her face. She didn't even look angry - that blank, neutral stare had returned again, just as it had when she'd told Charlotte about her mother and Frau Doktor. Charlotte had seen Erika's memories, and this was hardly the first time that Erika had pushed other people out of the category of "person" so that she could do what she needed to do to survive. Erika had burned away essential human connections - she had only just started to make new ones - and now her ferocious need to live would come at the expense of hundreds of lives, lives she no longer considered as human or even real. Charlotte didn't need to read Erika's mind to see that.

Charlotte scrambled frantically through her memories and the minds around her, desperate for something that would make Erika think, make her stop. Petia had dragged Waszka to cover behind the stranded submarine - sensible girl - but Erika's new connection to them was tenuous at best, terrified at worst. MacTaggert was a non-mutant like the men on the ships, but he was here on the beach with them, yelling for his superiors to stop. Charlotte couldn't risk that Erika had classified him as either a non-person or as someone to be protected: the first path would get MacTaggert killed, the second would just firm Erika's resolve. Charlotte was not so foolish as to believe Erika had any room left in her to accommodate anything other than "us" and "them". The fact that there even was an "us" was amazing enough.

The missiles hit the top of their terrible arc and began to turn down towards the ships. Harriet was at Raven's side as he spat blood into the sand; Petia and Waszka hid; everyone else stared at the missiles as if Erika were the telepath, hypnotising them all into silence.

Shaw had been a mutant, Charlotte thought, and Erika cared about that contradiction, that mutants could be evil, that a fellow mutant had killed her mother. She had been so angry when she'd found that out from Emory, in the helicopter in Russia, angry to the point of losing control. And yet, her dedication to Shaw's death had never wavered. "For my mother," she'd said, as Charlotte held Shaw paralysed.

There was just one person in Erika's mind who overrode the categories that Erika had made for herself, one woman's death into which Erika had poured all her rage and hurt. She had pushed it away from herself so she could survive everything else done to her and everyone around her.

"Your mother was human!" Charlotte yelled, trying to reach out for Erika, "Just like them, Erika, just like them!"

"She's dead." Erika's voice gave away nothing, just like her mind. "Dead and avenged."

"No, she's not gone." Charlotte took one last desperate chance, casting herself back into the memory that she'd glimpsed just once, before she ever knew Erika's loyal heart and ferocious love. Three people in a cellar, scratching out their old names and labelling themselves anew in an attempt to survive; only one of them succeeded. She dug into the memory of people crammed together in an apartment, happy in the golden light of candles: two parents, an uncle, two children, with other families around them, calling them by their much-beloved names. "Your name is Mara Eisenhardt. It was your grandmother's name. Your mother told you to forget it, but you can't. Your family is alive in you."

The missiles wobbled, and the sliver of Erika's face that was visible showed emotion for the first time since she refused to use the coin to kill Shaw. This face was the one that Charlotte knew, more angry than anything else, but it was all Charlotte had.

"I was wrong, Shaw was wrong, and you were right. Not about the violence, but to remember your mother. Evolution isn't smooth and it's not instant. We're not a new species - not in our generation, anyway. Your grandmother's and mother's genes are part of you. Your humanity depends on theirs. Petia and Waszka are your mother's grandchildren, and depend on yours. Let them go. Mara."

"It's not safe." Erika's voice is softer, now, but just as intense.

"Nothing's safe. You kill these men today, more come tomorrow. You don't know how many mutants are on those ships-"

"Then they will save themselves."

"That's what Shaw thought. And you know what's even more likely? That their children are mutants, waiting for their father to come home. Listen. I never...I never had to make the kind of decision you made. My power always let me hide, to put things off. I can't do that now. I can only ask you to stay with me. I love you, Mara. I can't hide that."

Erika knelt down and grabbed Charlotte's hands. "Promise me. Promise you won't hide. I don't know what to do. Fighting is all...my mother didn't have a choice."

"I promise. Let them go."

Erika looked up at the sky, her hands still holding Charlotte's, and the missiles flew out to all sides, completely missing the ships. Erika pulled off the helmet, and Charlotte nearly cried with relief to have that fierce, vivid mind back where she could feel it.

"I knew you would try to stop me." Erika touched Charlotte's face. "I didn't know it would be this way."

All Charlotte wanted now was to throw her arms around Erika, knock that stupid helmet to the ground and kiss her senseless, but she couldn't move. She couldn't get up.

Erika crouched beside Charlotte and slid an arm under her shoulders, but Charlotte screamed, and everyone else did, too, collapsing under her projected pain. Charlotte recovered before anyone else, oddly enough, the pain gone as fast as it had arrived, but everyone else was still gasping or crying out. Even Erika had her teeth clenched and hard lines around her eyes.

"Azazel!" Erika called. "I can't lift Charlotte - everyone needs to come over here to teleport. And hurry! Those ships are preparing to fire again."

Azazel came close and shook her head. "If I teleport her like that, she's just going to hit the floor when we arrive and knock us all out again. Someone needs to be holding her."

"No," Charlotte said, but she wasn't sure to what, exactly, she was objecting. Erika stroked her hair and turned her attention up the beach.

"Alex! Shannon! Get those children from behind the submarine!"

Petia leapt out as the girls approached. "Where are you going? Why should we go with you?"

Charlotte could feel Erika's glare, and Petia returning it.

Erika shouted, "I'm sure you can outrun another salvo of missiles, but your brother can't. We're going somewhere safe in America. Once we're there we can talk about what you want to do."

"But, I don't know you!"

"She's our mother," Waszka said quietly, putting a calming hand on his sister's shoulder. "That doesn't mean we can trust her, but I don't think she wants us dead."

"I'm still not -"

"Shut up and take Azazel's hand," Erika snapped, and, amazingly, they obeyed, hurrying down the beach to join them. Harriet and Raven joined hands with Azazel first, then Petia and Waszka with Shannon and Alex, then Angelo, Darwin and Jana. MacTaggert took Harriet's hand last of all.

Charlotte was just starting to wonder how Erika planned to move her when the helmet slid over her head. "No!" she shouted, but it was a feeble whimper. "No, no, no…" She was utterly alone for the first time in her life, clawing at Erika's arm to reassure herself that someone was still real. When Erika picked her up, the agony that slammed her into unconsciousness was a relief.


	10. Epilogue

It was almost summer again before Charlotte came home. Explosive shrapnel injuries to the spine did not lend themselves to an easy recovery. The first of the roses were blooming and she could have wept with relief to see her home, even with all the changes the others had made to it, changes she'd seen in their minds but not in person. The sweeping stone stairs now had a ramp; the servants' stairs had been replaced with a lift; Charlotte's new bedroom would be on the ground floor, right next to the library.

"There's no need to look so terrified," she said to Raven, beside her in the car Erika had modified. "I drove us home perfectly safely."

"You have got a lot better at getting around on wheels," Raven teased her, jumping out of the car and retrieving Charlotte's wheelchair. Harriet and Erika had taken one look at the clunky, heavy wheelchair she was expected to use and had immediately declared they could do better. They had lived up to their promise, even if it had taken most of the five months of rehab - after the three months in bed in a surgical brace - to perfect it. Charlotte was perfectly happy to be fussy about her wheelchair if it gave Erika something to do.

Erika was sitting on the stone banister, trying to pretend that she wasn't thrilled to see Charlotte, and failing miserably. Her wide grin kept breaking through her stony face and Charlotte returning her smile only made it worse. Erika gave up entirely and ran down the steps and across the newly paved driveway to greet Charlotte with a kiss.

"Welcome home," she muttered, embarrassed by her break in control.

"Oh, get a room!" Raven laughed. "You've got one, you know, Charlotte. Erika's been sleeping in it for months."

"Raven, you've always been a very supportive sibling, but you're not helping right now."

"That's your five minutes up!" Shannon yelled from the doorway, and the rest of the mutants flooded out the door and down the steps. The most demonstrative - Shannon and Darwin - hugged Charlotte, and the rest either shook her hand, patted her shoulder, or, in Alex and Petia's case, hung about in the background pretending they didn't care all that much.

Angelo, Darwin, Azazel and Jana had all stayed, though Azazel often disappeared on mysterious "jobs" that no-one asked too much about, occasionally taking Erika, Emory or Raven with her. Not even Raven would discuss the nature of these trips with Charlotte, which made Charlotte think she might be better off not asking. Petia and Waszka had stayed, too, though their relationship with Erika was uneasy. They were hardly inclined to trust another rescuer, no matter how pleased they were to be away from Shaw, and their blood relation to Erika made little difference, thus far. Charlotte hoped that, given more time in a safe environment, Petia and Waszka could relax a little, as Erika had, and be able to connect with her.

There were two more new mutants at the house, now, and Charlotte was planning for many, many more. The first was Shannon's cousin Tommie - who had been caught talking to trees one time too many - and the second was a physical therapist from the rehab centre, Emil Voght, a mutant who could teleport only long distances. He had been most disappointed to find that Charlotte had a girlfriend, though not so disappointed that he didn't want to hear about mutation and the reason for his abilities. Charlotte had offered him a job, when it turned out that physical rehabilitation was a long-term process. Emil had gladly accepted, for both the pay and the company of other mutants.

The thing Charlotte was looking forward to most, apart from being able to set her own schedule and perhaps sleep in a little, was getting back to Cerebro. She looked around, enjoying the company of all her friends, and realised one was missing.

"Where's Harriet?"

\---

As predicted, Shannon had been thrilled to have mice to look after, though she'd been somewhat less pleased to find out that they were to be used in experiments. Still, she'd been pretty interested in the experiments, too, so that worked out all right for Harriet. Raven had been at the hospital and now the rehab centre with Charlotte much of the time, swapping shifts with Erika or occasionally one of the others, and had totally lost track of Harriet's experiment in restoring normal human appearance. It was a tremendous shock to him when Harriet presented the finished product one evening.

"The animal tests are complete," Harriet said proudly, holding out a box with two syringes. "Appearance is normalised with minimal side effects."

Raven stared at him, sceptically. "What does 'minimal' mean?"

"Temporarily increased perspiration, some hirsutism. Sweat and hair growth, basically."

Raven flickered between her most usual male and female forms, then settled on the female one that she'd been wearing the most, recently - her legal ID listed her as female, and she didn't want to cause trouble for Charlotte at the rehab centre by having a strange man show up in her room. Charlotte's telepathy had only recently started settling down as her drug cocktail was reduced. Her power had been very unbalanced, rocketing from almost nothing to loud broadcasts in moments, Raven didn't want her to have to do anything extra like make him look female to the staff. He could do that himself.

"Harriet, I…"

"I know you're nervous, but it's okay. I'll go first."

"No, my legal identification as Raven says -"

"Erika can fix that, I'm sure."

Raven threw off her pretty pink-and-white skin, standing naked, blue and scaled. "No! Listen to me! I don't want to be what you call normal. This is normal. This is me. I can't live only as a man. If you can't deal with that, that's not my fault."

"But you won't need to disguise yourself!"

"I don't disguise myself! I'm always me!" Raven stormed out, turning only to say, "You only take me to bed with smooth, pink skin, and when you wake up to this face, this skin, you look away. There's something very wrong with that, Harriet. I won't let you lock me down so you can look normal, with a nice little husband and a nice little doctorate and nice little feet."

"Get out!" Harriet bellowed, and Raven did.

The next morning, Harriet didn't come down to breakfast. That wasn't unusual if she had worked late in the lab, so no-one thought anything of it. She missed morning training, and lunch, and then Emory went to find her. He and Harriet had made friends, bonding over a shared love of excessively complicated books and weird European movies that no-one else could follow.

*Raven, I need you right this second,* Emory broadcast, *In the chemistry lab. Wear real shoes.*

Emory had a tendency towards dramatic exaggeration - everything was either terrible or wonderful - so Raven didn't think much of it until he reached the room, shrinking his feet to pull on a pair of Charlotte's shoes. Emory stood in the middle of glittering chaos, and Raven saw why he'd warned him: the floor was covered in shards of glass, all Harriet's precious equipment smashed to pieces on the floor.

"Emory, where's Harriet?" Raven couldn't see much blood, but the scale of the destruction was unnerving.

"In the supply closet. She won't come out."

Raven picked his way across the floor to the supply closet door, and leaned against it. "Harriet? Are you hurt?"

"No." Harriet's voice sounded rough, like she'd been crying. "I'm not hurt."

"Did you take the serum?"

"Yes. It didn't work."

Raven sighed. "I'm sorry, Harriet. I know you really wanted it to."

"You didn't want it to work, Raven."

"I think you're already beautiful. And so am I."

Emory called out across the room. "I wouldn't go that far, but I think you're a cute couple!"

The door to the supply cupboard flew open. "And what about now?" Harriet shouted, and Raven jumped back, startled by the sheer volume. Harriet's face and arms were covered in tufts of blue hair and something about her face looked off, her mouth and jaw swollen and red between the soft patches of blue hair.

Without hesitation, Raven moved forward again, and wrapped her arms around Harriet. "Oh, Harriet, I'm so sorry you didn't get what you wanted."

Harriet tried to push her away, but Raven hung on, and Harriet quickly gave up and let Raven hold her, resting her forehead on Raven's shoulder. "It hurts. My teeth hurt. All my bones."

Raven rubbed circles on her back. "It will be all right, don't cry. I'll call Erika at the hospital and have her bring home some of Charlotte's pain medicine, the stuff left over from when she was really sick."

Emory came over, and gently stroked Harriet's hair, the softest gesture Raven had ever seen from him. "It hurt when I started changing, too, and now it doesn't hurt at all. Change hurts everyone."

"Except Raven," Harriet murmured, and she sounded less frantic now.

"Except me," Raven agreed.

\---

"Harriet's mutation advanced further," Raven told Charlotte. "She's a lovely shade of blue, now. Maybe you should make Marcus MacTaggert write a paper on that."

Marcus had left the CIA, claiming he couldn't trust anyone who was willing to let him die for no good reason, and had returned to college to further his science degree and study genetics. Charlotte had very much enjoyed debating all his textbooks when she'd been in hospital, flat on her back.

"Blue has always been my favourite colour," Charlotte said, mildly, though privately she was fairly sure that this meant Harriet had used her "normalising" serum on herself. Disappointing, but overestimation of one's own abilities was not something to which Charlotte could assign blame: after all, Charlotte had run off into combat with a month's informal training and look where that had landed her.

"Harriet is magnificent," Erika said with conviction. "Though I don't believe that she thinks so."

"Yes, your opinions and hers rarely match. Come on, darling, let's go inside. I want to see everything with my own eyes."

The staff had all gone, now. Erika was determined that they would look after the place themselves, saying that if they were to look after their own kind, it needed to start from the ground up. It seemed to have gone well, so far. The gardens were in good shape, the house itself clean and tidy.

*I was expecting a terrible shambles,* Charlotte told Erika, though with a smile.

*Shannon tells me she comes from three generations of cleaning ladies. You can thank Angelo for getting the cobwebs, though. And Petia for the floors - she's very efficient when she wants to be.*

*The more you complain about her, the more I believe she's your daughter,* Charlotte joked, though Erika didn't laugh. The tensions between Petia and Erika must be worse than Erika had let on when she visited Charlotte for all those months.

\---

Erika had thought so many times that Charlotte was going to die. She'd suffered severe spinal trauma from the large piece of shrapnel that had hit her in the back, and although her spinal cord was not completely severed, the damage was compounded by the way she'd been moved around before making it to the hospital in New York. Erika wished very much that she'd made Azazel just take Charlotte away, regardless of what Charlotte wanted. They'd explained their multiple injuries with a car accident, and the improbability of it didn't really matter once Emory arrived and smoothed everything over.

Everyone had minor injuries from the plane crash, and Angelo had a damaged wing from the missile blasts, but he couldn't treat that at a hospital; Emory helped a doctor overlook Azazel's appearance for long enough to treat her for a deep cut to her back. It had taken hours, hours of Charlotte in surgery, before Erika had even acknowledged her own injuries. She'd only had her broken ribs, cracked tibia and assorted lacerations treated because Raven told her that otherwise he was sending Erika home with Azazel. It was Darwin and Emory, in the end, that organised everyone safely to Westchester, Petia and Waszka included, while Raven and Erika waited with Charlotte.

The first week, the spinal swelling was serious enough that they didn't know if Charlotte would even live, or make it through without brain damage. Erika waited with Raven, and the whole world blurred around them as if they were holding their breath too long, waiting and waiting on the slow timeline of the human body. She was moved into a private room after two weeks, when Charlotte's telepathy returned before her ability to speak. It was fortunate that the drugs drastically weakened her telepathy, because most of what she projected was a strange disjointed moan. Erika checked Charlotte's chart to see exactly what these drugs were that humans could use to subdue a telepath, and hated herself for taking the time to think about the future when the most vital part of it lay there lost in confusion and pain.

Waszka had come in, once, with Darwin. Erika knew she should feel connected to him - Charlotte had said how important that was - but she felt nothing beyond relief that they had rescued him from Shaw.

"You must have been very young when we were born," he said, conversationally and in Polish.

"Yes. Your father and I were forced together by Shaw. Marcel was very kind to me: do you know anything about him? Did he live?" Erika honestly couldn't care anymore, now that Shaw was gone, but Waszka seemed to expect something from her. The past was the only thing that she had to offer this child, her son. It was hard to even think of him as a child: he was older than she had been when she had given birth to him and his sister.

"I don't know. Our parents - the Maximoffs, I mean, who adopted us - they told us that a Roma man by that name appeared at their camp one night with two babies in a wheelbarrow. He said that a witch was looking for him and he could lead her away, if only someone would care for his children. Our mother had just lost her own baby, so she had milk for us, and she agreed. They never saw him again."

Erika didn't know what to say for a moment, and scrambled to catch the thread of the conversation. "They were good to you? The Maximoffs?" She was anxious for him to have been happy. Perhaps she would feel the same about any child, though she couldn't deny that she was deeply relieved that he and Petia hadn't grown up under Shaw's malignant guidance.

"Yes, they were very kind, always. Then my powers started to develop and caused everyone trouble, so we decided we had to leave. We both should have been married by this age, but even our own people were nervous of us." Waszka shrugged slightly, as if he was used to this. Erika could see Marcel there, suddenly, sloughing off hurts done to him in order to protect others.

"Where did your people expect you to go?"

"They gave us money, the little they had. We travelled north-west because we had heard that things were better for Roma there, but my powers caused trouble again and we ended up in jail in Czechoslovakia. It wasn't the first time they'd arrested me, but it was the first time they'd got Petia, too."

This was something Erika understood, plotting and biding time. "Shaw must have been waiting for some sign of you. She probably had people all over Europe reporting in at the sight of strange abilities."

"Yes. But I saw you have the Cerebro machine. That's better."

"Why? Shaw was a mutant too, collecting her own kind."

Waszka smiled. "Because you let people say no."

Erika didn't return the smile. "If Charlotte can ever use Cerebro again."

Erika and Raven each had to tell Charlotte several times that her spine was damaged and she might not walk again. She forgot every time she slept, and panicked when she woke up, her arms twitching and awkward, her legs completely still. On the fifth day awake, it was Erika with her when she opened her eyes.

"I'm in hospital. I'm paralysed in my legs at the very least. My telepathy is not working properly. Shaw is dead. Everyone else is alive and well. I think I've got it today."

Erika leaned in and kissed her forehead just below the halo brace, though her blood ran cold expecting Charlotte to pull away. Charlotte didn't, though she watched Erika's every move, and that's when Erika remembered that Charlotte's body was bolted to the bedhead by her skull and she couldn't get away if she wanted to.

Erika leaned back. "I'm sorry. I should have asked you."

"You don't have to stay," Charlotte said, quietly, and Erika felt like her ribs were squeezing the breath from her lungs all over again. She tried to put on her emotional armour like she used to do, but Charlotte always found ways under it.

Standing up and stepping back, Erika's whole body ached with the effort of letting go of Charlotte's hand. "I'm sorry, Charlotte. It should have been me."

She wasn't even halfway to the door when Charlotte called out, "Erika!"

Erika turned around, waiting for Charlotte to blame her, and indeed Charlotte looked incredibly angry.

"You don't get to walk away, Erika, not while I'm bolted to this bed. You changed everything in my life and you don't have the bloody decency to stay with me now that I'm crippled? Go then, if you want. You're not who I thought you were."

"You want me to stay?"

"No!" Charlotte's voice was still raspy, but she was projecting now, too, a clear scarlet rage. "No, I don't want you to stay. I want to wake up and be still in Oxford, with my legs working and my telepathy working and Raven happy and no death on my conscience. But I need you. Maybe I hate you. I don't know. But you were here for the start of this." She waved a wobbly arm at her legs. "And you can be here for the rest of it. Live with the damage you cause, for once. Help me."

Erika sat down by Charlotte's bed again, intensely relieved that there was something Charlotte wanted from her, hatred or not. "I understand."

Charlotte reeled her telepathy back in and looked at Erika out of the corner of her eye. "Yes. I think you do."

Charlotte was angry for months after that, with everyone except Raven. Raven often came to read to her. They would talk together, their heads nearly touching in an intimacy that Erika realised that she'd become used to in her time with Charlotte, an intimacy she missed horribly but knew she didn't deserve. Erika wasn't wanted when Raven was there, so she started going to the house in Salem Center during the day, working with the others to fortify it against all comers. Alex had taken charge of training the others in the use of their powers; Darwin was running the logistical side of things in between her college classes; Petia and Waszka were learning more English with help from the others. Erika felt that her emotions had been paralysed like Charlotte's legs: it wasn't the safe blankness that she'd been able to bring on before, but a constant unavoidable shrill edge of panic. Most of the other residents of the house avoided her entirely, though Alex still brought her lunch when everyone else was eating, and sometimes they'd talk to a nervous Harriet about security issues.

Every night, Erika would return to the hospital so that Raven could go home, and settle in to care for Charlotte. Charlotte was still angry at Erika, at the doctors, at everyone, though the nurses were so competent at ignoring Charlotte's jibes and lack of co-operation that she'd given up poking at them. Erika stayed for all the procedures that maintained Charlotte's body: the bed baths, the enemas, turning her body so she didn't get bed sores, the catheter, the physical therapy, the antibiotic drip and the endless waves of pain and painkillers and nausea. Every time, Charlotte stared Erika down like they were at war; every time, Erika stayed by her side.

Three months in, the steel brace was removed and Charlotte was moved to a physical rehabilitation centre attached to the hospital. Erika packed up all Charlotte's things and followed, expecting nothing different. She'd felt this way in the quest to find Shaw, sometimes, as if she was on a Ferris wheel, apparently in motion but really going around in a great circle, seeing the same sights again and again and forgetting to expect or search for change.

Then there was Emil Voght. He was the physical therapist assigned to Charlotte, and he didn't care about Charlotte's anger or grief. All he cared about was making her capable again.

"What do you want from me? I'm crippled!" Charlotte shouted at him.

"I don't want anything. Though less self-pity would make my job easier."

"This is not self-pity! This is anger!"

Emil laughed. "If you were really angry, you'd be putting in some vicious effort on this lift bar. No, this is self-pity."

Charlotte seemed to focus her anger on Emil, after that, and less on Erika. "He made me swim four laps today, and he wouldn't bring the lift back down until I'd finished all four!" she reported with outrage, or "I dropped my hand-weight and that idiot wouldn't get it for me! He made me crawl across the floor. God, I hate him."

Erika didn't have much to say, but it was nice to be considered as Charlotte's ally again, against Emil the Torturer. Erika found herself using the gym or the pool sometimes, since Charlotte was gone for hours in the day and now slept through the night. It was good to stretch her body out again, to feel strong and capable at least at one thing.

One afternoon, Charlotte was seeing a neurologist, and Emil wandered into the gym and over to Erika.

"You're a mutant too, aren't you?" he said, casually.

"What did Charlotte tell you?" Erika was in a room filled with heavy steel weights and machinery: she didn't feel intimidated.

"What I am. It made no sense that I was the only one. I got the talk about mutation and evolution and single-celled organisms. Does she do that a lot?"

"Yes." Erika floated the barbell she was lifting over to the rack. Emil watched with interest.

"I'd show you what I do, but it's tiring and I've only got a ten minute break. I instantly travel long distances. Never short ones - it's always to Peru or somewhere."

"Can you control it?"

"Not when I was a teenager, but I can now. Saves me a bundle on plane fares." He shrugged. "Charlotte's been trying to get me to chat so she can slack off on her physical therapy."

"Does that work?"

Emil laughed. "Hell no, but at least it's interesting conversation!"

Later that evening, Charlotte held her arms out to Erika. "I need to go to the bathroom." All their touches were like this, purely functional.

Erika looked up from the book she was reading, and before she could think about it, said, "No. Emil said you should do it yourself."

"What do you mean, "no"? What are you here for anyway?" Charlotte's voice trembled with exhaustion and rage.

"I'm here because I love you, Charlotte. I think I'd forgotten that." She lifted Charlotte up and carried her to the bathroom anyway, and, for once, Charlotte shooed her out.

"Come back in a minute."

Erika waited outside the door, and returned when Charlotte called, to find Charlotte sitting on the toilet, holding the handrails, in tears. "Charlotte?"

"I hate this, I hate this. I hated you, I was punishing you, but I can't even do that anymore. What am I supposed to do, Erika?"

Erika picked her up again and carried her back to her bed. "Keep going."

On impulse, she bent down and kissed Charlotte's eyelids, the tears salty on her lips. Charlotte reached up and dragged Erika down to her, to kiss her properly, still crying, but smiling through it.

"Oh, Erika, I've missed this. How can you still want me?" She grabbed Erika's shirt so that Erika had to kneel over her or fall on her. "I made you see every last horrible thing they had to do to keep me alive. I wanted you to be disgusted. I wanted to take away your privacy like you took mine. Like my injury did."

"Mystery is overrated. You're a telepath, you should know that. And they were hurting you to keep you alive, Charlotte. There's nothing disgusting about that."

Charlotte stroked Erika's temple. "I tried to make you hate me so I could hate you properly. I should have just done it with telepathy, but that wouldn't have been real."

"Shhh." Erika kissed Charlotte again, kneeling over her, stroking her soft, raggedly regrown hair and the firm muscle of her arm. Charlotte made a strange choking noise, then pulled Erika down on top of her, mashing their bodies together as if they could share their scars and pain, pressing them into each other until it hurt. Erika opened her mind and her heart along with her body, and Charlotte rushed into her like a wave on the beach, like they'd never been apart.

\---

Charlotte's ground floor bedroom was almost exactly as it had been on the third floor, except that the floor was wood rather than soft carpet.

"Raven's done a good job," she told Erika, who shrugged.

"It's rotated ninety degrees from your room upstairs."

"Only you would care about that." She checked out the lift bar over the bed and the hand rail stuck on the wall beside it.

"I can move those if they're not right." Erika was fidgeting, unusual for her.

"What's going on? You look nervous."

Erika sat on the bed, close to Charlotte's height in the chair. "You've poisoned me with your magical optimism. I thought that the moment you got home, everything would be perfect. But Harriet's still blue, there's still Nazis in the world, you're still hurt, Petia still hates me…"

Charlotte wrapped her hand in Erika's hair and pulled her down to kiss her. "Erika, my darling Erika, if this is what it takes to make you optimistic, I will shower you in kisses day and night. Of course nothing is perfect."

Erika tried to speak, but Charlotte kissed her words away.

When they paused for a breath, it was Charlotte who spoke again. "And, Erika, everything is perfect."

**Author's Note:**

> POTENTIALLY SPOILERY WARNINGS BELOW
> 
> Spoilery warnings: forced pregnancy, medical torture and murder of an infant.
> 
> END OF POTENTIAL SPOILERS


End file.
